As Putin discusses immortality, how Vladimir ‘bathes in reindeer blood’ and is influenced by friend determined to discover how to ‘stop ageing’… as rumours swirl about the tyrant’s health problems

Decades of assassinating political enemies, repressing his people, rigging his country’s elections and invading other nations appear have caught up to Vladimir Putin. 

For all his macho posturing, whether it be riding a horse shirtless, taking judo lessons or even tranquillising tigers and polar bears, Putin is said to be petrified of mortality. 

The tyrant is said to have spent much of his precious time investigating ways to prolong his life. 

Yesterday, we saw a rare glimpse into this fear of death, having been caught rambling about immortality during a summit with Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.

Putin, who is in Beijing with the North Korean ruler and dozens of other world leaders to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, was caught in a rare candid conversation with China‘s premier. 

The pair, both 72, were heard chatting about the possibility of achieving immortality with organ transplants and advanced medical procedures, alongside Kim Jong Un. 

Xi told Putin via a translator: ‘Earlier, people rarely lived to 70, but these days at 70 you are still a child’.

Putin responded: ‘Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and (you can) even achieve immortality’.

Xi said in response: ‘Predictions are, this century, there is also a chance of living to 150’.

As the leader of one of the most powerful nations on earth, Putin has access to possible remedies and cures that us mere mortals can only begin to dream of. 

Below are some of the strangest things Putin has done to defy death. 

Bathing in reindeer blood

Putin is said to be a believer in the power of reindeer blood, choosing to consume and bathe in the substance. 

It is believed that the blood strengthens bodies and stops the ageing process. 

Proponents also believe it helps male libido. 

Every year, thousands of Siberian red deer are harnessed to have their antlers severed by farmers wishing to capitalise on the growing trend in Russia, before it is processed and put into baths. 

Ludmila Korotkhih, a red deer farm manager told CNN: ‘Of course it’s not a drug. It’s more of a supplement. But it makes our immune system strong, heals the body and gives us great strength, men’s libido in particular’.

Farms across the Altai region are famed for selling a wide variety of products made from antler blood, including creams, pills and alcoholic drinks. 

Many also host so-called ‘antler broths’, which the rich and powerful in Russia have come to live. 

Along with Olympic athletes, Moscow’s elite, like Putin and his inner circle, have jumped on the trend. 

Putin is believed to have begun bathing in reindeer blood in 2003, on the recommendation of a local governor. 

He reportedly asked a doctor about the use of blood for medical purposes.

Since then, he has visited the Altai region many times, often several times a year. 

In 2015, he took former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to the region. 

And the following year he had more than 150lbs of reindeer antlers prepared for him.  

His close friend ordering scientists to come up with cure for ageing 

Last year Russian scientists were ordered to find a cure for ageing. 

The Russian health ministry told research institutes to investigate cures for cognitive and sensory disorders, cellular ageing and osteoporosis, as well as medicine for boosting immune systems. 

One anonymous researcher told Meduza: ‘We were asked to urgently send all our developments, and the letter arrived, let’s say, today, but everything had to be sent yesterday’.

The directive was issued by Mikhail Kovalchuk, one of Putin’s close friends. 

The head of Russia’s Kurchatov nuclear research institute and a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Kovalchuk also oversees a state-backed programme on research into genetics that involves Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria Vorontsova, an endocrinologist.

Kovalchuk is crazy about eternal life … and he ran to the president [with the idea], a Kremlin source told The Times.

Bodyguards carry suitcase full of Putin’s excrement to prevent foreign powers learning about his health

In 2022, it was revealed for the first time that Putin’s bodyguards bag up his excrement during foreign trips to prevent intelligence services from learning about his health. 

According to Paris Match, agents with Putin’s Federal Protection Service collect his waste and place it in a dedicated briefcase with the intention of flushing it away in Russia. 

This has reportedly happened during visits to France and Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2019, and is believed to have happened while on other foreign trips. 

Former BBC reporter Farida Rustamova appeared to confirm Paris Match’s report, writing that she was aware of a similar incident in Vienna and that Putin had used ‘a special private bathroom’ and a ‘porta-potty’ in the previous trips. 

She cited an unnamed source as saying he had carried out the practice since he began leading Russia in 2000. 

It’s no wonder he carries out the practice, given that previous Russian leaders have analysed the excrement of the leaders of other nations in the past. 

In 2016, it was revealed that Joseph Stalin has Chairman Mao’s waste analysed during a visit to Russia in 1949. 

Special toilets were constructed for Mao during his 10-day visit to Moscow. 

They weren’t connected to a sewage network, but instead held Mao’s waste before it was sent to a lab for analysis. 

Russian scientists were looking for levels of potassium and amino acids, which were thought to aid psychological profiling.

Needing a corset amid back problems

Putin raised eyebrows in the autumn and winter of 2012 after postponing several foreign trips to Pakistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan. 

In September that year, he was seen limping at an Asia-Pacific summit in the Pacific port of Vladivostok. 

At the same conference, he was also caught on a hot mic complaining to his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that he was on a restricted diet.  

Sources around him told reporters at the time that he was suffering back pain that needed surgery to correct. 

One anonymous source revealed he was seen wearing a back brace, while another simply said: ‘The chief is not well. 

‘No one has announced this formally, but everyone knows that foreign visits are being cancelled because of his illness’.

The Kremlin, keen to uphold the Russian leader’s tough-guy image, strenuously denied the claims.

Ever-changing appearance and plastic surgery

A once-svelte KGB officer and martial arts practitioner, Putin is now a bloated and seemingly brittle man with a lilting gait and a stiff, scowling visage likely held in place by copious amounts of botox and more than one facelift.

And there have long been rumours that he employs several body doubles to stand in for various public appearances as he grapples with mounting health issues.

A look back in time reveals Putin has dramatically transformed in appearance over the years, from a shrewd spy-turned-politician into a greying dictator and warmonger.

When he ascended to the presidency in his mid-40s, Putin was a fit, articulate and youthful leader – a stark contrast to his aged, alcoholic predecessor Boris Yeltsin and the greyed and balding Soviet-era chiefs.  

Putin was a huntsman, a black belt in Judo and a cerebral debater, with piercing cold blue eyes and a sharp jawline.

He was often snapped bearing a subtle, knowing smirk and a glint in his cold, grey eyes that suggested he had long been plotting his rise to the top.

Upon returning to the presidency after a four-year stint as Prime Minister between 2008-2012, Putin embodied the role of a virile, intimidating strongman. 

By the time of his third inauguration in May 2012, Putin was already closing in on 60 – but images of the black belt effortlessly tossing martial arts experts over his shoulder, galloping bare-chested on horseback and plunging stone-faced into icy lakes were ubiquitous.

Putin underwent a noticeable change, appearing for his fourth inauguration in Moscow in May 2018 – four years after the annexation of Crimea – a visibly different figure.

His face shape was unquestionably different – the strongman had undoubtedly gained some weight, but there was something else.

The president’s features were smoother and more rounded despite his age and his eyebrows and cheeks seemed fixed in position, altering the nature of his gaze.

His lips meanwhile appeared sunken in and somehow tighter as if excess skin had been sucked from around his mouth.

The subtle changes led many to speculate Putin had undergone some kind of plastic surgery in an effort to retain the semblance of virility and physical prowess.

He was also balding – the long-enduring combover was finally failing, with the crown of his head beginning to show through the wispy strands of grey hair. 

And after the turn of the decade, the steady weight gain that characterised the latter years of the 2010s began to speed up and the president’s once strong if slightly porky physique became more doughy.

Gone were the meaty shoulders and defined pecs, replaced by a flabby neck and pot belly that even the most dark and well fitted of refined suits struggled to conceal.

Putin’s luxury train worth £62million that has a beauty room, antiaging machines, and a gym 

Vladimir Putin’s luxury armoured train set Russian taxpayers back 6.8billion rubles (£62million), and is equipped with a beauty room, anti-ageing machines and a gym. 

Photos and blueprints of the train show it kitted out to the nines. 

The beauty room, which is sound-proof, has everything from ‘antiaging machines’ to ‘firming emulsion,’ and ‘cherry blossom’ facial masks. 

It also has a Turkish hammam steam room. 

One carriage has been turned into a gym, which includes a bench press, a hyperextension machine, and dumbbells weighing up to eight kilograms.

The train’s gym is also used by Putin’s security team, who specifically requested equipment for ‘training thigh muscles’. 

Made up of 22 carriages, including comms centres, a satellite carriage and an internal diesel power station, the train costs 1.45billion to maintain every year. 

Possible in-utero stroke 

Little is known about Putin’s upbringing. As a member of the KGB, he has long held the belief that the less his enemies know about him, the better. 

But Angelo Thomas Pezzella, a cardiac-thoracic surgeon based in St. Louis, Missouri, told The Atlantic he believes Putin may have suffered a stroke while still growing in his mother’s womb. 

Pezzella said Putin may have suffered a stroke in utero, a rare condition that ordinarily leads to life-long difficulty. 

The theory of having suffered a stroke appears to be backed up by a videos of Putin at judo matches that show him using a closed fist, instead of a wide hand, to push himself up off the floor. 

This appears to show a loss of sensation in the fingers on his right hand. 

Brenda L. Connors, a senior fellow in the strategic-research department of the Naval War College, said she believes that as a result, it is likely Putin never learned how to properly crawl as a child. 

She cites his lack of what is known as contra-lateral movement, instead tending to move in a head-to-tail pattern, like a fish or a reptile.

She said she believes these challenges ‘created [In Putin] a strong will that he survive and an impetus to balance and strengthen the body.’ 

She continues, ‘When we are unable to do something, really hard work becomes the way.’

His prowess at judo astonishes her: ‘He is like that ice skater who had a club foot and became an Olympic skater.’

Cancer scares

Putin has long been rumoured to be suffering from cancer. Earlier this year, Volodymyr Zelensky declared confidently that the Russian leader ‘will die soon, and that’s a fact’. 

Though the Ukrainian President did not offer evidence to back up the claim, it may not be as bold a statement as it first appears, with the 72-year-old Russian dictator plagued by rumours of ill health over recent months and years.

Putin’s physical appearance has also come under scrutiny, with pictures earlier this year of him with red eyes and a mystery bruise on his hand fuelling speculation that his health is deteriorating. 

Even more shocking images of the Russian leader in recent years have shown him with a prominent scar on his neck – sparking theories that he had undergone surgery for thyroid cancer.

Reports also abounded around the start of the war in Ukraine that he was constantly accompanied by a specialist cancer doctor, while a US intelligence leak also appeared to confirm that he was undergoing chemotherapy. 

Experts have speculated that he could be suffering from Parkinson’s – a claim backed up by a former British intelligence chief who said contacts had informed him that something was ‘fundamentally wrong’ medically with the dictator.

In 2022, the Kremlin was forced to deny rumours that Putin soiled himself after falling down a flight of stairs – reportedly defecating ‘involuntarily’ due to ‘cancer affecting his stomach and bowels.’

Moscow has always maintained that its leader is fit and well, and Putin has continued with his attempts to project a strongman image despite his obvious aging and often sickly appearance.

Leg shakes and twitches 

Just last month, Kremlin footage captured the Russian leader’s knee jolting repeatedly as he stood alongside Donald Trump at the end of their brief exchange following a joint press conference at the summit in Alaska.

The pair, flanked by security teams and aides, spoke for a short time, with a translator stepping in to assist their conversation. 

Video clips shared online showed the Russian leader repeatedly dipping one knee as he stood beside the 6ft 3in former president at Elmendorf-Richardson air base in Anchorage – before departing without agreeing to a ceasefire in Ukraine.

But the unusual movements was seized by eagle-eyed Ukrainians, who ridiculed the 72-year-old’s fidgeting and speculated about the state of his health.

They even claimed he wore a ‘light exoskeleton’ as well as thick-platform shoes to overcome his ‘Napoleon complex’ and minimise his height difference with the US president.

An exoskeleton is wearable robotic device designed to assist or augment the posture of the person wearing it.

Observers also noted the striking difference in stature, with Trump’s 6ft 3in frame towering over the 5ft 7in Russian leader despite Putin’s visibly elevated footwear.

As well as pushing out his knees, Putin repeatedly raised his left toe and heel in turn. 

Later Putin was seen bending his knee to lay flowers at the graves of Soviet pilots and other military personnel at the Fort Richardson Memorial Cemetery.