Putin couldn’t look more sinister in visit to children’s cancer hospital | World News

Visiting sick children should be an open goal for a politician: just talk gently to the patients, be sympathetic, and don’t look like a supervillain.

Unfortunately for Vladimir Putin, it seems it’s a bit like invading Ukraine – harder than he initially thought.

Moving from ward to ward at the Dmitry Rogachev Centre for Paediatric Haematology, Oncology and Immunology in Moscow, the Russian president looked every inch the Bond baddie.

Even the brave kids being treated for cancer weren’t going to given the warmonger an easy ride.

One child named Vadim was filmed hiding under his duvet as Putin swaggered into his room, wearing a white coat that looked more suited to an abbatoir than a hospital.

When his mother threatened to take away the boy’s phone for two days and pulled his duvet away, Vadim immediately pulled it back up.

‘He is just being shy,’ said the mother, before her son replied: ‘I am not shy!’

Elsewhere, the president looked a little more relaxed as he posed for a photo between two hospital beds occupied by young girls.

The hospital visit came as rumours about the health of Putin himself continue to swirl around, with a Kremlin spokesman recently forced to deny he has several lookalikes to stand in for him at events.

Dmitry Peskov told a crowd at a major Moscow exhibition earlier this month: ‘Experts are guessing, are there three or four doubles?

‌‘The one we are seeing daily, that one who was laying flowers at the… monument [on Red Square] earlier this morning… Was this double number three, or double number four?

‌‘But we have only one Putin.’

Two weeks ago, a Telegram channel notorious for repeatedly claiming the 71-year-old is terminally ill gave a detailed account of an alleged cardiac arrest he had suffered.

It added to a litany of health complaints supposedly endured by Putin, including cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.