Tyrant Vladimir Putin won't be governing Russia in the near future because of his health issues, it has been claimed.
The problems have add have added "unpredictability" to his future as leader and whether he will be able to continue as pressures mount over the Russian military forces' worsening invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian leader, who is turning 70 tomorrow, is said to have been visited around 35 times by medical specialists with cancer expertise, according to the Proyekt opposition website.
In April it stated he was taking baths in the blood of young reindeer antlers as treatment.
Putin has also been seen walking with limp on several occasions.
This included footage where he was seen limping during a trip to Iran in July.
The dictator will turn 70 tomorrow, but state statistics show the average male life expectancy in Russia is 66 years of age.
He is becoming increasingly "isolated and irrational" as he gets older and his health problems are said to be affecting his decision-making.
Putin, however, will have access to healthcare specialists unlike most citizens in his country.
He still has widespread support in Russia, but some members of the political elite have accepted that Putin’s regime is nearing its final stretch.
A source close to the Kremlin told Meduza, an opposition website: “There’s an understanding, or a wish, that he won’t be governing the state maybe in the foreseeable future.”
Only last week there were reports Putins health is “dramatically deteriorating”, a political scientist said about the Russian president's medical condition.
The Mirror told how Valery Solovey, a former professor at Moscow prestigious Institute of International Relations [MGIMO], has long claimed the Kremlin leader has serious underlying illnesses.
Now he alleges that the Russian President's secret medical conditions have impacted on his judgment on the war.
Putin is also annexing parts of four regions of Ukraine in defiance of world opinion.
It is seen as a way of escalating the war and is expected to trigger new Western sanctions.
But Solovey, 62, in an interview with exiled Zhivoi Gvozd radio - formerly the highly respected Echo Moscow, but closed by pro-Kremlin Gazprom Media early in the war - said Putin’s burst of recent activity as president did not mean he was healthy.
“It is a very strange idea that a gravely ill person cannot work and travel,” he said.
“Specially in such comfort, accompanied by such a number of doctors, and being serviced [according to] top standards of… world medicine.
“Everything is provided for him in that sense.”
He claimed: “As for his health, it is deteriorating, yes, dramatically, dramatically.”
Solovey - who claims to have sources inside Putin's circle - said: “All of the decisions made by him…on February 24 [start Russian invasion of Ukraine] and September 21 [start of mobilisation] are a direct consequence of his physiological status.
“Direct in the sense of physiological health and in terms of mental [health].”
He suggests that but for the supposed illnesses Putin would not have gone to war in Ukraine.
"Modern therapy, targeted therapy for oncological diseases, is of such quality that you will be working until literally the last few hours," he said.
Solovey, like Telegram channel General SVR, has claimed previously Putin is suffering from serious illnesses including cancer, Parkinson’s disease and a schizoaffective disorder.
There have been Western claims about his health from ex-MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, who said the Russian leader faces being sent to a sanatorium, and will be gone by 2023, due to medical issues.
A Russian independent media suggested he was permanently surrounded by top Russian medics including cancer specialists when he went on trips.
