For two years we’ve watched the coronavirus death statistics with horror.
And since February 24 with even greater fear we have been watching the official and unofficial numbers
of victims and losses during the pointless war with Ukraine.
It’s not likely that someone has ever guessed
that we’d have to think so much about other people’s deaths in the 21st century.
And still, there is one death which is most expected and predicted by half of the world,
by a huge part of Russia, and by the whole Ukraine.
Today we’ll discuss Vladimir Putin’s death.
Modern media allows people to consume information they like.
As a result, there are a lot of views of the news that Putin is about to die soon,
that he’s not doing so well and something like that.
It’s in people’s nature to believe the version they like rather than the version they don’t like.
And here we are, thousands of people read anonymous Telegram-channels and live in anticipation of Putin’s death.
Let’s try and analyze what’s going on around those rumors and predict when
Putin dies based on the info we already have.
Bogus stories about Putin’s death existed even before the war.
Each time Putin disappeared from journalists’ eyes, there was someone who called him dead.
And when he returned to the screens, they watched him suspiciously for some time –
like isn’t it a video made earlier in case of his death?
There is the most well-known conspiracy theory which became a meme a long time ago.
It’s about Putin’s doppelgangers – “the Udmurt”, “Banketny”, “Govorun” and so on.
Its supporters think that the real Putin died long ago, and we watch his doppelgangers on TV.
This theory was so popular that in 2020 Putin had to comment on it.
He said that he dropped the idea of doppelgangers in the beginning of his first term.
When the coronavirus started, Putin was in strict isolation in his residence.
It was a very fertile soil for rumors.
They said the President was either seriously ill with COVID or had already had it
and was almost dead somewhere in his apartments.
But rumors about his death then didn’t cause such a turmoil as they do now.
During the first days of war everyone hoped for the elites’ plot, the military plot,
the plot of the personnel in the President’s bunker.
But no one managed to kill the most important person aka military criminal.
Along the way they tried to bury Shoigu too who disappeared in March for 2 weeks.
But he had also risen from the dead.
In May four British tabloids with the reference to MI6 sources said that it was likely Putin had been already dead,
and his death was just hidden.
But as it often happens with the tabloid press, they didn’t give any proof.
I don’t know if such news made the President feel worse, but he stopped giving pseudo historical speeches.
Talks about Putin’s serious illnesses sound more like truth.
In April the “Project” edition published a big investigation about the President's health.
It turned out that he is crazy about his health, he even practices folk medicine and takes
questionable baths with deer antlers’ extract.
Moreover, an oncologist was with him during all of his trips.
This doctor is also a surgeon and a thyroid cancer specialist.
This person has also been with Putin whenever he disappeared for some time.
It must be said that thyroid cancer can be cured without consequences.
Oliver Stone who interviewed Putin in 2015 says Putin had oncology at least, but he had already recovered.
And all those talks (with or without proof) were enough for many people to believe in his deathbed condition.
Videos with the titles like “How long has he got?” have millions of views.
It’s when based on anonymous sources Valeriy Solovey predicts
that Putin has complicated surgeries and anyway he’s going to die by the end of the year.
Each rumor like this, each hint that the President doesn’t have long has thousands of reposts.
Besides, the President's special isolation conditions because of the pandemic don’t make the situation easier.
Only a very close circle is admitted to him.
Everyone sits in quarantine for 2 weeks before they meet him.
And when Putin gets out of his bunker, he tries to shield himself with a huge table or the whole hall.
We didn’t know anything about it before, and now we’ve got no hope to learn what’s going on with his health.
We can only listen to those untrustworthy experts with their unknown sources
Now an ad, and then we’ll try to understand why we keep listening to them and why we want to believe them so badly.
ADS
Let's now understand what can be based on when predicting how long Putin has left to live
Why do so many people watch closely over the rumors about Putin’s illnesses?
Why do they spread such rumors?
There’re a lot of reasons for that.
First, it’s the most common human reaction to wish for the person you hate to die.
And oh-so many people hate Putin.
It looks like nobody in the 21st century has been hated this much.
Maybe, except for Osama bin Laden.
But the President of Russia has all the chances to take the fame of No.1 Terrorist.
He is doing everything to achieve it giving orders to bomb peaceful cities, railway stations and bus stops with missiles.
People don’t like terrorists, you see.
And they wish them dead.
Putin doesn’t have a lot of competitors here.
Second, people want justice badly.
When you watch bombed cities for months.
When you see photos of a mother and her daughter killed by a missile.
When you see the video where a man is holding his son’s hand who was killed at the bus stop.
In moments like this you want the man who is responsible for that dead too.
It would seem only fair, and we need justice so badly.
Third, and what’s most important, we can’t influence what Putin does now.
The government has severed all the ties to the external world.
They invent incredibly high numbers of people’s support and make decisions based on those numbers.
They killed all the sources of information, except for YouTube and Telegram chats.
They start criminal cases here and there.
All the street activities were suppressed, and dozens of thousands of Russians had to leave the country.
Almost all the significant opposing politicians are either in prison or forced to leave the country.
And what should a common person do?
It’s one of the most horrible and dangerous feelings – powerlessness.
The most horrible thing is to think that nothing depends on you, and the outcome of this war,
the fate of Ukraine and Russia is being decided somewhere on the battlefields or deep down in bunkers.
So, a common person from Nizhny Novgorod can only hope that Putin will die, and all those horrors stop.
And a few people doubt that Putin’s death will mean the end of the war.
And there’s one more thing: during 23 years of Putin’s rule, it has become clear for many people
that he will leave the Kremlin only in a coffin.
This is the only thing left to hope for.
But what will happen if we forget the emotional part and try to figure out
if we should really expect and hope for Putin’s death now?
In fact, expecting the death of a 70-year-old man from Russia is not a totally hopeless business.
70 is a fateful age for Russians.
It’s an average age of death both for men and women.
And we know that women live longer.
As per data in 2022, life expectancy for men in Russia is 64,7 years.
It’s a horrible number!
It’s the 141st place in the world.
It’s even worse than in the neighboring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
So, Putin managed to outlive an average Russian man for 5 years!
So, statistically, he might die at any moment?
In short, no.
Life expectancy is an abstract number.
It shows how long the man born this year will live if the conditions remain the same for his whole life.
It’s not a prognosis, it's the current reality in numbers.
And yes, in current reality a Russian man rarely lives longer than 65 years.
But, for sure, Putin is not an average Russian man in many respects.
Even if we consider life expectancy as an important marker, our optimism will diminish,
if we have a look at the city the President officially lives in – Moscow.
Men in Moscow care a bit more about themselves and live 74,6 years on average.
So, if we imagine that Putin is a normal senior citizen of Moscow with average pension and outpatient care,
he has 5 more years to live.
In this case he should be quite alright now.
The only thing is that we can’t imagine Putin being an average Russian senior.
And I’ll remind you that it’s how long a person lives if nothing changes in the country for his whole life.
And what if we pay attention to the positive tendency that nowadays people live longer than in the 80s?
The UN has statistical research which allows us to calculate how long average citizens of any country will live,
including the life expectancy dynamics in the given country.
Let’s take a look at the statistics for a man born on October 7, 1952 in the USSR who is living in Russia now.
A man born the same day as our President has, on average, 10.5 years more to live – up to 80 years.
It’s good for this man but it’s bad for those people who expect Putin to die soon.
But still Putin doesn’t live in the same conditions as the majority of Russian citizens.
If he lived in Europe, he would have 16-17 years more.
In rotten America it’s 16 more years either – almost up to 86 years.
It looks like being rotten is good for your health.
OK, what makes the risk of death higher?
Harmful habits, alcohol and smoking.
We know nothing like that about Vladimir Putin for sure.
Low-quality health care, going to a doctor too late, no access to necessary treatment.
Well, Putin has all the access to necessary and high-quality treatment.
I think it’s obvious.
As to going to the doctor in time, it looks like Putin never goes to any doctor.
Five doctors follow him everywhere he goes to notice any trouble early.
What we’ve learned from the “Project” investigation is that Putin is obsessed with his health.
If you want to understand how the access to high-quality health care makes your life longer,
please have a look at the life of Putin’s “esteemed colleague” Robert Mugabe.
In Zimbabwe people usually die before 60.
Men usually die before 55.
But Mugabe was fine managing the country at 93.
Rumors say he had all kinds of illnesses, and he recovered successfully.
And after retirement he lived for two years in a clinic in Singapore.
Yes, it looks like Putin is not the healthiest man in the world.
But we have no trustworthy data about any illnesses he might have now or had in the past.
Nor about any consequences of these illnesses.
In case we refuse to believe Professor Solovey’s insider info, of course.
Or the constant ridiculous observations of how he walks, etc.
Yes, Vladimir Putin will surely die.
We can be sure about it.
Even if he decides to live in a bath of young Siberian stags’ blood.
But we can’t know if it happens because of an unexpected blood clot,
or poisoned door handle, or if a double-headed eagle stucco falls down on his head.
And we can’t predict when it happens – this year or 10 years from now.
I’ve already told you, I’m sure that any politician who takes after Putin, even the one from the current system
like Mishustin or Sobyanin, will stop the war with Ukraine immediately.
It’s that expensive.
But it doesn’t mean that we should expect Putin’s death any day now.
If you investigate the issue a bit, without conspiracy theories and predictions based on “anonymous sources”,
there are no reasons – statistical or logical – to think that Putin will die soon.
And it might be useful to remember that a dictator's death doesn’t guarantee relief.
When Stalin died, a thaw started, yes.
But the USSR didn’t collapse immediately.
And the Cold War didn’t stop.
It happened much later mostly because of economic reasons.
And it had nothing to do with Stalin.
If you look at any statistics, Putin is likely to live for 10 more years.
The irony is that it means he has a good chance to see Russia without Putin’s rule.
And there is no point for us to spend these 10 years waiting for his death listening to every promising rumor.
You should think it’s the only thing we can do now.
Even when it seems that we can’t influence the course of the war, we are not powerless.
We can tell the truth, spread it, comprehend what’s going on and make people around us understand it too.
That’s what us, me and you, my followers, are doing now, and we’ll continue doing it tomorrow.
No matter how long Putin has lived.
Till tomorrow!