Russians Speculate About Putin’s Spine

What’s happening with President Vladimir Putin’s spine? This is the question that has Russians guessing as their leader engages in the time-honored tradition of denying his health problems.

Top Russian officials have long preferred to hide their illnesses, an instinct that can turn even minor ailments into global media events. The practice harks back at least to the Soviet era, when Kremlin watchers divined policy shifts by noting which geriatric Communist leader was absent from the top of Lenin’s tomb as the May Day parade went by. General Secretaries Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were both hospitalized for months before the public knew of their conditions. Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, kept the world in the dark about a heart attack until after he had won the 1996 elections.