Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threat is ‘very real as health worsens’, insider claims

Vladimir Putin has long been rumoured to be suffering from deteriorating health (Pictures: Reuters/Getty)

There is a ‘very real threat’ of Vladimir Putin launching a nuclear attack because he has ’emperor’s madness’, an oligarch close to the Kremlin has reportedly said.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has sent multiple scary messages about its willingness to use nuclear weapons on the west.

Nato leaders have generally dismissed these threats with Boris Johnson arguing that ‘Putin has far more political space to back down, to withdraw’.

But ongoing reports of Putin’s supposedly deteriorating health may throw a spanner in the works.

A billionaire quoted by The Sun said insiders had told them that ‘big business closely affiliated to power are sitting as quiet as mice because the emperor’s madness is real, and the nuclear strike’s threat is very real, too’.

‘They told me that Putin’s psychiatric health is bad indeed, and stories about him going bonkers are not a joke,’ the source added.

It comes as Christo Grozev – the lead Russia investigator for the Dutch investigative journalist group Bellingcat – told Ukraine’s TV-24 there are oligarchs who believe Putin has cancer.

Other experts say the ‘elites do not believe in Putin anymore because they think he has cancer’ (Picture: Getty)

Russia has threatened the west with nuclear war multiple times (Picture: Reuters)

Mr Grozev said: ‘I have no exact data about [Putin’s] health condition but people who are close to him, including oligarchs, believe he has cancer.

‘One oligarch close to him has told about Putin’s serious oncological disease. Once again, I cannot tell you this is really so, but I can say they talk about it.

‘People next to him believe he has such a disease. It becomes a factor in Russian inner politics because people do not believe Putin anymore – they do not believe he can be their guarantor in the future.

‘And this is the feeling throughout the elites.’

Putin was pictured using what looked to be a wool blanket as he sat with other Kremlin officials to watch a Victory Day parade – a Russian celebration of the country’s Nazi defeat in 1945.

This has fuelled the most recent rumours about the almost 70-year-old’s health but other generals were seen using the same blankets and Moscow’s highest temperature was 9ºC.

Before this, Putin was reportedly filmed with a shaking hand and trembling leg leading to guesses over whether the leader may be suffering from Parkinson’s.

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