Hundreds of thousands of Russians turned to the popular search engineYandex to seek information about President Vladimir Putin’s health, drivenby unfounded rumors of a cardiac arrest that had garnered internationalattention. The surge in search queries followed the speculative reports.
The investigative website Agentstvo unveiled compelling findings. Searchterms such as “dead Putin,” “dying Putin,” and “Putin died” collectivelygarnered over 417,000 impressions. These queries concerning Putin’s allegeddemise ranked among the top 12 searches related to the term “Putin.”
The source of the health-related rumor, which the Kremlin vehementlyrefuted as a “hoax,” could be traced back to a Telegram post by the Russiangossip channel General SVR on October 26. This post claimed that Putin hadpassed away at his Valdai residence at “20:42 p.m. Moscow time,” whichsupposedly triggered “a coup d’état in Russia.” It further alleged thatdoctors were confined with Putin’s body on the orders of Federal ProtectiveService Director Dmitry Kochnev, who was receiving instructions fromNikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council of the RussianFederation.
The same post raised concerns about the security of a presidential stand-inand the potential for a coup if a double were to be presented as thepresident after Putin’s supposed demise. A separate General SVR post fromOctober 23 described officers discovering the president in a convulsivestate on the floor, indicating that he had been moved to a specialized roomfor resuscitation.
While the post mentioned that the president’s condition had stabilized andwas under medical supervision, it also noted that Putin’s inner circle wasdeeply concerned, as attending doctors reportedly indicated he might notsurvive until the end of autumn. Notably, General SVR, a Telegram accountwith nearly half a million subscribers, has a history of making falseclaims, and the author’s identity remains anonymous.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov unequivocally rejected the rumors ofPutin’s cardiac arrest and death, labeling them as “just another hoax” andassuring the public that “everything is fine.” Furthermore, President Putincontinued to make public appearances, including attending governmentmeetings, despite the Telegram posts.
According to Agentstvo’s report, the peak of searches related to Putin’s”death” on Yandex occurred between October 23 and October 29, coincidingwith the posts published by General SVR. Throughout October, there were atotal of 6.3 million searches involving the term “Putin.”