普京驾滑翔机受伤 病情加重鲜有露面

信源：新华网

当地时间9月5日，俄罗斯亚马尔-涅涅茨自治区（Yamalo-Nenets District），俄总统普京驾驶滑翔机，引导一群濒临灭绝的鹤群踏上迁徙之路，到5000公里以外的安全地区。

据外媒1日报道，俄罗斯总统普京数月前因驾驶滑翔机为群鹤引路而受伤，近日普京因病情加重，将取消或推迟部分国内外行程。

据克里姆林宫的消息人士称，普京正在接受治疗，其主治医生建议他减少乘坐飞机，以免影响其脊椎。

据称，普京已经减少出席公开活动的频率，且活动范围仅限于莫斯科近郊。此外还有媒体称普京原定于11月对保加利亚、印度和土耳其的访问行程也将推迟到12月。

普京的发言人德米特里・佩斯科夫10月25日曾否认普京受伤的消息，称普京背部没有受伤，也没有打算休息。他说：“这与事实不符，你看得见他每天还在开会。”而访问印度的行程会按照预定进行。

Mystery deepens, rumours swirl around health of Russia’s Putin

Jim Heintz 
The Associated Press 

MOSCOW—What ails Vladimir Putin?

The Russian leader whose image of physical vigour is key to his success has cancelled several foreign trips in recent weeks and has rarely left his suburban residence outside Moscow.

Putin dresses like a crane

A respected Russian newspaper claimed Thursday that a publicity stunt in which Putin tried to lead cranes on their migratory paths in a motorized hang-glider aggravated an old injury.

Putin’s stunts in photos

Putin's office denies it was the flight with cranes, insists it is just a pulled muscle and spins the situation, saying that athletes often get banged up. Besides, it says, Putin's avoiding the Kremlin office so he doesn't tie up Moscow traffic with his motorcade — something that hasn't seemed to trouble him during his previous 12 years in power.

So what's really wrong?

Combine the old Russian custom of keeping a leader's health problems secret with a massive PR apparatus that micromanages information about Putin to the nth degree and what do you get? A lot of speculation.

After celebrating his 60th birthday in early October, Putin has rarely left his official residence, sparking claims that illness or injury had laid him low.

On Thursday, the Vedomosti daily cited unnamed Kremlin-connected sources as saying Putin's September flight with the migrating cranes had aggravated an old injury.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a state news agency that Putin had pulled a muscle during a workout but it was not connected to the highly publicized flight.

“Indeed, he pulled a muscle,” Peskov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying. “Actually, we have never tried to conceal it because any athlete has lots of injuries, which, however, do not mean any restrictions of his activities.”

By writing off the injury as a sport-related trauma, Peskov apparently aimed to reinforce Putin's image of vigour and daring — a persona he has assiduously cultivated since coming to power in 2000. State television has shown him swimming in a Siberian river, petting a tranquilized polar bear in the Arctic and piloting a fighter jet, as well as skiing and practicing judo.

The hang-glider flight with the cranes, which took place just before a summit in Vladivostok, was one of Putin's trademark adventurous media events. Yet on the first day of the summit, Putin did seem to be in discomfort as he greeted leaders and avoided standing for long periods of time.

Peskov was quoted as saying that Putin was making only infrequent trips to the Kremlin lately because he didn't want his motorcade to disrupt Moscow's notoriously bad traffic.

That's a laugh — although it is true that Putin's presidential motorcade forces the shutdown of large stretches of highway, an inconvenience that many irritated drivers mark by blaring their horns angrily as his car races past.

Putin has also put off several expected trips abroad, including ones to India, Turkey and Bulgaria. The Interfax news agency cited Peskov as saying there was no single reason behind those changes.

Despite the cancelled trips, Putin is still shown on state television almost daily — mostly sitting at meetings with officials.

A Moscow-based political analyst said the health problems of Russian leaders in the past have often led to political crises.

“First of all, it slows everything down. Even the most immediate problems or solutions cannot be taken and they have to be delayed,” said Viktor Kremenyuk of the U.S.-Canada Institute. “There is no mechanism to replace the president in the absence of the president. This simply means a standstill — everything stops.”

Putin's macho image is especially important in Russia, which has often been ruled by aged autocrats whose health was routinely kept a top secret.

Russians often ascribed Boris Yeltsin's disjointed speech and bizarre behaviour to heavy drinking, although his press service insisted he was taking strong drugs to alleviate a heart condition.

Soviet dissidents once ridiculed the mumbling and senility of Leonid Brezhnev, who led the Soviet Union until his death in 1982 at age 76. Two more aged Soviet helmsmen died after Brezhnev in just three years before Mikhail Gorbachev took over in 1985 — prompting Russians to joke about “season tickets” to their funerals.

Dictator Josef Stalin's death in 1953 came as a surprise to average Soviet citizens although his health had been deteriorating for years.