A senior Ukrainian official suggested that the Kremlin faked a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been rumored to be gravely ill.
Russian state news agencies and a pro-Putin reporter released videos from the meeting — and the Kremlin published still photos and a transcript of the conversation between the two leaders on its official website, claiming that it took place Thursday.
But Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, raised doubts about the encounter between Putin and Kadyrov, writing in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “It is unclear when this meeting took place.”
In a follow-up post, Gerashchenko summed up five clues suggesting that the meeting actually took place at another time, which were first laid out by the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU.
“The first video of the meeting was published by a Kremlin propagandist [Pavel] Zarubin,” Gerashchenko wrote. “It shows the time on Putin’s watch: 12:48. The full version of the video is less than four minutes, then Kadyrov’s conversation with Putin stops abruptly (due to Kadyrov not looking well?).”
Reporters covering the meeting were then asked to leave the room, according to the Telegram channel with purported ties to the Russian security apparatus.
Zarubin released the first video from the meeting at 13:11 p.m. local time, but it only showed Kadyrov from the back, according to Gerashchenko citing the VChK-OGPU post.
The full version was published at 13:22 and showed Kadyrov grinning.
“The video’s metadata reveals that it was edited on a MacBook,” the Ukrainian government official noted. “About a month ago, Apple products started being banned in government offices, starting with the Kremlin.”
This could mean that either Kadyrov’s meeting with Putin took place more than a month ago, “or the propagandists as always broke their own rules.”
Meanwhile, Kadyrov’s plane is said to be still in Moscow, and there continues to be heightened security at the city’s Central Clinical Hospital, but the guards have been shifted to another building, the Telegram channel reported.
Rumors swirled this month that the 46-year-old Kadyrov, dubbed “Putin’s attack dog,” was seriously ill, with a Ukrainian official claiming that he was comatose in a hospital.
Earlier this year, it was reported that the Chechen warlord was struggling with severe kidney problems, requiring the attention of the United Arab Emirates’ top kidney specialist.
But when asked about his purported health woes by Zarubin in an interview allegedly shot Thursday, Kadyrov laughed and declared “Akhmad — power” — a Chechen political slogan invoking his late father Akhmad Kaydrov — while playfully flexing his biceps.
Kadyrov later posted on Telegram that he and Putin had talked about a wide range of topics during their one-on-one, including the role of Chechen fighters in Ukraine. He added cryptically that “other issues” were raised, and promised “more on this later.”
It was not clear whether he was referring to the beating of an ethnic Russian prisoner at the hands of his 15-year-old son.
Kadyrov sparked a widespread outrage even among Putin’s supporters when he praised his youngster, Adam, who was seen in a video mercilessly pummeling the prisoner, Nikita Zhuravel, for allegedly burning the Koran.
With Post wires