Paul Goble
Staunton,
July 7 – Vladimir Putin reportedly has cancelled three domestic trips that he
had been scheduled to make this week – to the Altay, Sakha and Nizhny Novgorod –
and has not appeared in public since returning from Finland, a pattern that is
already leading to speculation about his health physical or political.
Three
sources “close to the Kremlin” told RBC that the Kremlin leader had cancelled
the three trips, but Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peshkov, said there were
no cancellations and that these “trips” were simply among “the dozens” people
have proposed but that had not been agreed to by the president (rbc.ru/politics/06/07/2016/577ced289a7947214102dae3).
But
the news agency’s sources provided the kind of detail which suggests that the
trips in fact had been planned and then cancelled. According to them, Putin was
supposed to take part in a session of the State Council on tourism on July 5.
Then on July 6, he was to go to Sakha to take part in a regional conference of
the Popular Front and the opening of a sports competition.
And
on July 7, Putin reportedly was expected in Nizhny Novgorod to open a new
factory; but according to the news agency’s sources, this event was not only
organized at the last minute but cancelled shortly thereafter. It reported that the factory owners hope to
have it rescheduled later this month or in August.
RBC
reports today that “the last time Putin took part in public activities to which
the press was invited was at the end of last week” when he flew to Finland. The
presidential Internet page lists subsequent meetings with regional heads, but
at least one of them took place earlier than the Kremlin reported.
The
last time Putin was out of public view this long was in March 2015 when he did
not appear in public for eleven days. At
that time, Western news agencies like Reuters reported that the Kremlin leader
was ill, something his press spokesman denied.
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