Fact Check: Is Vladimir Putin About to Have 'Emergency Colon Surgery'?

Claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin is sick and is about to undergo an emergency procedure have resurfaced in recent days, following on from unverified reports that the 70-year-old Russian leader fell down the stairs and "soiled himself."

Putin's health has been subject to fervent speculation for years, with multiple claims, usually attributed to anonymous sources, variously suggesting an onset of Parkinson's, cancer and other problems, potentially "terminal."

Many of those claims have been proven false by the sheer fact the Russian president is still alive and able to carry on with his job, but that has not stopped the narrative from resurfacing.

The Claim

The latest claim about Putin's alleged health woes appeared to link back to earlier unverified reports of the president falling down the stairs.

"Vladimir Putin To Undergo 'Emergency Colon Surgery' After Rumors Russian Leader Fell Down Stairs; 'Soiled Himself'," a Reddit post with more than 10,000 upvotes claimed on Saturday, December 10, 2022. The post linked to a RadarOnline article via MSN repeating the claim.

Pro-Ukraine accounts and media amplified the story, too, with one user, Oles Filonenko, writing, "so [the Telegram channel] General SVR didn't lie? And [by extension] about Putin soiling himself?"

This claim was woven into a broader narrative about Putin's supposed ill health, with the news that the Russian president is scrapping his annual press conference presented as further evidence of his condition.

"Putin has canceled his annual message to the Federal Council, his press conference and the New Year's festivities in the Kremlin. Maybe he's about to kick the bucket?" another user wrote.

The Facts

While Newsweek cannot independently verify the claims or assess the Russian leader's current health condition, we can trace the emergence of this narrative via the now familiar misinformation route.

The Filonenko tweet appears to imply that the claim has been independently corroborated by other outlets and is thus confirmed. That is misleading.

The article cited in the tweet is by a Ukrainian outlet, "Ekonomichni Novini," or "Economic News."

This article, in turn, cites the British tabloid the Daily Star as its source, as does RadarOnline.

In its report, the British paper indeed wrote that Putin "is set to undergo surgery from a colon and rectal specialist after he took a damaging tumble at his house," citing "reports."

"Top officials in the Kremlin were forced to deny "completely untrue" reports last week from the General SVR Telegram channel that the erratic dictator had fallen down the stairs and soiled himself," the article continues.

But as the article goes on, it becomes clear that the source for the new claim is the same channel, General SVR.

"Leaks on Telegram revealed: 'Putin will have a simple surgical operation.

"'The fall from the stairs last week, which resulted in a bruised tailbone, did not go unnoticed and caused new problems not directly related to the bruise.'"

"The channel, citing insiders in the Kremlin, has previously said that 'due to cancer, Putin has serious digestive problems and has been on a strict diet for the past few months.'"

The passage matches a Friday, December 9, post by General SVR, which said, in Russian, that "Upon his return from [Kyrgyzstan], Putin will have a simple surgical operation. The fall from the stairs last week, which resulted in a bruised tailbone, which we talked about, did not go unnoticed and caused new problems not directly related to the bruise."

The same channel has previously posted "intel" relating to Putin's supposed cancer diagnosis, which appear to be referenced in the Daily Star story.

However, as Newsweek has stated on multiple occasions previously, General SVR is an anonymous channel on a loosely-regulated social media platform that has provided no evidence to support its claims about access to Kremlin or Russian intelligence sources.

The channel has repeatedly touted claims that Putin is sick, with many media outlets citing it as proof that Putin's leadership (or health) is cracking, without questioning its veracity.

But even as General SVR Telegram posts have been widely reported in Europe and the United States, including by the New York Post, U.K. daily newspaper The Mirror and various other media organizations, the disclaimer highlighting the channel's lack of credibility has often been found lacking.

The identity (or identities) of the Channel's account holder remains unknown and subject of much speculation. It has been intermittently linked to a range of different sources, from Ukraine's intelligence agencies and a prominent former Kremlin insider, to Vladislav Surkov, the "gray cardinal of the Kremlin," who Putin tasked to lead the Russian operations in the Donbas in 2014.

However, none of those links have been confirmed, and as the identity (and by extension the credibility) of the source remains unverified, it ought to be treated as simply yet another dubious source of speculation.

That, on its own, does not amount to proof that rumors of Putin's fall and ensuing surgery are baseless, and indeed other—arguably more trustworthy or authoritative—commentators have previously made similar allegations, and the latest claim may yet prove to be true. The Kremlin, notoriously cagey about any speculation regarding the president's health, has repeatedly dismissed such reports as false.

But the story provides a textbook example of how misinformation and unevidenced claims, both pro-Russian and those countering the Kremlin's propaganda, can proliferate online, aided, laundered and amplified by a combination of social media accounts, tabloids and mainstream outlets.

Newsweek has reached out to the Kremlin for comment.

The Ruling

Unverified.

There is no reliable and public evidence to corroborate the claim that Vladimir Putin is about to undergo surgery.

The sole source for the speculation is an anonymous Telegram channel whose reliability has been questioned by both Newsweek and other fact-checkers. The anonymous channel has a track record of sensationalist claims, including ones about Putin's health, alleged assassination attempts against him, or the supposedly imminent dismissal of Russian military leadership, that so far have failed to materialize.

As it stands, Newsweek can neither confirm nor refute the claims, ruling it as "unverified."

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK