Putin puppet breaks silence on deathbed rumours in strange new video

A close friend of Vladimir Putin has hit out at rumours that he is on his deathbed in a bizarre video in which he claims he “does not want to live long”. Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, a republic of the Russian Federation located next door to Georgia, was filmed alongside Russian MP Adam Delimkhanov joking about his health.

During the war in Ukraine, Putin promoted Kadyrov to colonel-general in the Russian national guard, giving the Chechen additional power. He already controls national guards with a strength of up to 30,000 and has plans for his own private army.

Ramzan Kadyrov, 46, is seen alongside friend and Russian MP Adam Delimkhanov in the clip, in which the pair vow to “continue to carry out the tasks” citizens want achieved.

Kadyrov has been rumoured to be suffering from “kidney failure”, while Delimkhanov himself was reported last month to have been killed or wounded in the war in Ukraine after being targeted by a missile strike.

In the video, Mr Delimkhanov says: “It is precisely for such small-minded people that we, together with our dear brother, the Head of the Chechen Republic, Hero of Russia Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov have recorded a video clip. Well? What do you say now?”

“We are still alive somehow,” Kadyrov then adds. “Anyway, we don’t want to live long. We will live a short but decent life.”

In March, after being driven into the mountains of his fiefdom in the TransCaucasus, he posted: “For those who console themselves with the hope that I am terminally ill, I am sorry to upset you. I am healthy and full of energy.”

He admitted that “people claim I have different diseases – sometimes I [am presumed to] have problems with my kidneys, sometimes with my liver”.

Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya for 16 years and boasts he has been sanctioned by the West more than any other individual.

He is widely accused of human rights abuses.