MOSCOW – A weird and unsubstantiated report regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personal security routine has once again made news. This happened on Saturday when he met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska. There are reports that Putin’s bodyguards are in charge of collecting his “poop” or feces and carrying it back to Russia in a special bag so that foreign espionage services can’t learn anything about his health.
In 2022, investigative journalists Regis Gente and Mikhail Rubin presented the theory for the first time in the French magazine Paris Match. Their claim says that the Russian president’s Federal Protection Service (FPS) is in charge of this “delicate mission.” The reason behind this supposed practice is that a person’s biological waste can hold important information about their health and possible medical treatments.
The Paris Match article says that the “harvest” was first seen in 2019 when Putin went to Saudi Arabia and that it was also done when he went to France in 2017. It is said that the garbage is put into special pouches and then sent back to Russia in a safe suitcase to keep “absolute secrecy.” Farida Rustamova, a former BBC journalist, also backed up similar claims, saying that Putin used a portable toilet on a trip to Vienna to make sure no biological evidence were left behind. She quoted someone who said that the practice has been going on since Putin became president in 1999.
These unverified reports have added to long-standing concerns about the health of the 72-year-old leader, which have included claims of several types of cancer and Parkinson’s disease. The Kremlin has always denied these reports, yet they keep coming up.