Putin's Antarctica Ice Question Perplexes Officials: Video

Vladimir Putin was met with blank looks during a meeting when he asked questions about the age of an ice core that was discovered by Russian scientists in Antarctica, a video showed, in the latest of the president's bizarre tangents.

Alexander Kozlov, Russia's minister of natural resources and environment, briefed the Russian president in a video-link meeting on Wednesday. He said scientists in Antarctica last year found the ice core, which is believed to be about 1.2 million years old, at a depth of just over 2 miles.

The conversation marks the latest in a string of Putin's recent ramblings or episodes where the Russian president has appeared to be confused.

The video showed Kozlov tell Putin that the ice core is being studied by glaciologists, chemists and climatologists, and that the findings are expected to help understand how the Earth's climate was formed.

"If this core is 1.2 million years old, does that mean there was ice at this place for 1.2 million years?" Putin asked Kozlov.

After he asked Kozlov about the age of the ice core, other attendees of the meeting appeared to look at Putin with blank expressions.

"Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich, that's absolutely right," Kozlov replied.

"Or maybe the water there froze later? Not 1.2 million years ago, but closer to us? Could this happen?" Putin asked again.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich, this is atmospheric ice. Science says so far that this is still the case, as I answered [you] the first time," the seemingly bemused minister replied.

"Okay, fine," the Russian president responded, and moved on to another topic.

In July, speculation about Putin's health resurfaced on social media when he became confused about the age of the child of a deputy mayor during a discussion at the Kremlin.

The Kremlin has insisted Putin is in good health, but the slip-up sparked rumors that he could have dementia.

Unproven rumors have persisted about Putin's condition since the start of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These have included that the Russian president has cancer, Parkinson's disease, and even dementia.

In another incident in July, Putin was quoted in a Kremlin transcript as asking a Russian governor to pass on his "regards" to soldiers who had been killed in the war in Ukraine.

And during talks in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Putin mispronounced the name of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. According to Russian independent news outlet Agentstvo, it marked the fourth time at least that Putin has failed to pronounce Tokayev's name correctly at public events.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

The U.S. Geological Survey's National Science Foundation (NSF) says ice cores are cylinders of ice drilled from ice sheets and glaciers, describing them as "frozen time capsules" that allow scientists to reconstruct climate far into the past.

Studying ice cores allows scientists to determine how and why climate changed in the past, and in doing so, they can improve predictions of how climate will change in the future.

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