Putin's gait does NOT suggest Parkinson's but a sign of years of strict KGB training: Expert
Vladimir Putin's popular gait may not be a sign of Parkinson's but rather linked to his years of training as a KGB operative, researchers have suggested.
The Russian president, 69, has garnered a lot of attention over the years for his unusual walk, with several viral videos showing how his right arm remains rigid by his side while his left is free to swing normally. Medical professionals have previously said this could be due to a stroke or Parkinson's, but a group of researchers believes his style is a result of his strict KGB training. Bastiaan Bloem, a neurology professor at the Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, has analyzed Putin's walk for years and came to a conclusion after studying a KGB training manual.
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The KGB was the primary security agency for the Soviet Union. Putin served as an operative for a reported 16 years. The aforementioned manual reportedly explains how KGB operatives were trained and instructed to always keep their right hand close to their chests. According to researchers, the instruction allowed the subject to be able to draw his move quicker than a potential enemy.
Bloem and his fellow researchers expounded their theory in The BMJ, the British Medical Journal’s online publication. “According to this manual, KGB operatives were instructed to keep their weapon in their right hand close to their chest and to move forward with one side, usually the left, presumably allowing subjects to draw the gun as quickly as possible when confronted with a foe," they wrote, adding, “We propose that this new gait pattern, which we term ‘gunslinger’s gait,’ may result from a behavioral adaptation, possibly triggered by KGB or other forms of weapons training where trainees are taught to keep their right hand close to the chest while walking, allowing them to quickly draw a gun when faced with a foe.”
Having said that, Putin continues to wreak havoc in Ukraine with relentless shelling in major cities across the country. Russian troops recently bombed a maternity and children's hospital in the city of Mariupol as part of an airstrike. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a war crime and said that a number of people were trapped under the wreckage. Ukrainian media said that at least 17 people, including staff and patients, were injured. In another shelling, a convoy of buses packed with people fleeing the war on Tuesday, March 8, was struck, with 21 people, including two children, losing their lives, Ukrainian authorities said. Thousands of people, including civilians and soldiers, are thought to have been killed.
And in one of the most recent cases of atrocities against civilians, a chilling video captured the moment when a Russian ‘special peacekeeping’ tank blew up a car in a completely unprovoked attack. An elderly civilian couple was killed inside the car. A clip doing the rounds on social media showed the car moving into the frame before halting as a Kremlin tank fired on the vehicle twice, blowing it into pieces.