Amid rumours about his poor health, a video showing Vladimir Putin’s shaking hand as he greeted Belarus’s leader resurfaced this week.
The clip, which was filmed just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, showed him gripping a chair and pressing his hand to his chest to stop it shaking as he greeted Alexander Lukashenko.
It fueled further speculation of the state of his health after footage and images appeared to show his bloated face and slouching posture.
But the scenes of Putin’s apparent struggles are reminiscent of a clip that showed Adolf Hitler’s own failing health as Germany faced total defeat in the Second World war.
In what was one of the last times the dictator was seen alive outside of his Berlin bunker, a propaganda video filmed in April 1945 showed him decorating members of the Hitler Youth who had been called up to defend Berlin.
The film was supposed to show how Hitler was still in command, even as the Soviet Union’s troops closed on the capital.
But a telling part of the footage was cut from the final version and was supposed to have been destroyed.
The clip, which was discovered in an East German film laboratory in the 1970s, showed the Nazi leader’s left hand shaking violently as he held it behind his back while greeting military officers during the same trip outside his bunker.
Many historians and experts believe that Hitler was suffering from Parkinson’s disease at the time the video was filmed. The condition hampers muscle control and impairs mobility.
A resurfaced video showing Vladimir Putin’s hand shaking as he greeted Belarus’s leader Aleksander Lukashenko in February is reminiscent of a clip that revealed Adolf Hitler’s own failing health as his country faced total defeat in the Second World War.
British historian Richard Evans previously told how Hitler began to show symptoms of Parkinson’s disease earlier in the war.
He told the Smithsonian Channel in 2014 that symptoms of shaking in his left hand were ‘for a time’ cured after he was injured by the bomb that went off in the 1944 attempt on his life.
‘He had a shake in his left hand and for a time that was cured as it were by the bomb that went off on July 20, 1944.
‘As he said, that’s not the way I would choose of curing it. But soon after that, the shaking came back in his right side.
‘He began to drag his feet and shuffle. He began to speak in a more flat, less animated sort of way. Normally.’
Comparisons of footage filmed in 1940 and 1944 showed how Hitler’s mobility had appeared to decline during the course of the war.
Surviving records show how Hitler’s personal doctor Theodor Morell first noted Hitler’s tremor in 1941 but put it down to stress.
Then, in the final days of the war, he concluded that Hitler was suffering from ‘shaking palsy’ – the original name for Parkinson’s disease.
As well as impairing thought processes, Parkinson’s can impair posture and muscle control.
Hitler killed himself inside his bunker, which was built near Berlin’s Reich Chancellery, on April 30, 1945.
The mass murderer took his own life alongside his wife Eva Braun, who he had married the day before.
By then, Germany was on the brink of total defeat against Allied and Russian forces.
The Nazi dictator had launched a doomed invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 which saw Joseph Stalin’s forces fight back and ultimately triumph against German troops.
Just a few days before his death, Hitler made a rare trip outside his bunker to decorate the teenager soldiers who had helped to defend Berlin
Hitler killed himself inside his bunker, which was built near Berlin’s Reich Chancellery, on April 30, 1945.
Surviving records show how Hitler’s personal doctor Theodor Morell (pictured left behind the dictator) first noted Hitler’s tremor in 1941 but put it down to stress
Earlier this month human rights officials claimed that, just like in Nazi Germany, the Kremlin has resorted to recruiting children to boost its troop numbers in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow was said to be recruiting from youth clubs and conscripting 16-year-olds to replace the estimated 30,000 soldiers either killed, wounded or captured so far in the war.
So-called ‘patriotic clubs’ sprang up in Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine following its invasion in 2014 as part of a campaign to promote the country’s culture in Luhansk and Donetsk.
The Ukrainian parliament commissioner on human rights Lyudmyla Denisova said: ‘The occupation authorities [of Luhansk and Donetsk] are conducting the mobilisation of children who participated in the so-called patriotic clubs, to the levels of illegal weapons formations.
‘They have been doing military training and there have been deaths among these teenagers [in Ukraine].
‘Now they are promoting the entry into the army of civilians, including children in the temporarily occupied territories.
Later in the February clip, Putin is seen tapping his feet while he grips onto the arm of his chair for support as he sits next to Lukashenko
He alternates his right and left hand holding on to the chair as he continuously lifts his feet up and down
‘In doing so, the Russian Federation has violated the laws and customs of war provided by the 1949 Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians… and the rights of children.
‘The recruitment of children is a violation of international law.’
In the video of Putin that was filmed in February, the Russian president is seen standing up awaiting his Belarusian ally as his hand starts to violently tremble.
He pulls it into his body in an attempt to quell the shakes, but then he almost stumbles as he unsteadily walks towards Lukashenko.
Later, Putin sits on a chair but is unable to remain still, constantly fidgeting and tapping his feet while he grips onto the arm for support.
A bloated Vladimir Putin was also seen gripping a table whilst slouching in his chair during a televised meeting with his defence minister Sergei Shoigu amid rumours the Russian strongman is battling cancer. Shoigu did not appear to have fared any better, with the defence minister slurring his words and reading from his notes following an apparent heart attack
But Putin’s poor posture and his apparently bloated face and neck sparked speculation about the Russian leader’s health, which has reportedly been in decline since his invasion of Ukraine
The resurfaced clip will do little to dampen the rumours about his potential illness, amid rumours he is battling Parkinson’s, dementia or cancer.
A bloated Vladimir Putin has been seen gripping a table whilst slouching in his chair during a televised meeting with his defence minister amid rumours the Russian strongman is battling cancer.
Last week, he made a rare live appearance with defence minister Sergei Shoigu where they discussed the ‘liberation’ of Mariupol.
Putin’s poor posture and his apparently bloated face and neck sparked speculation about the Russian leader’s health, which has reportedly been in decline since his invasion.
Video showed Putin speaking to Shoigu whilst gripping the edge of the table with his right hand – so hard that it appears white – and tapping his foot consistently.
Shoigu does not appear to have fared any better in the eight weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, with the defence minister slurring his words and reading from his notes following an apparent heart attack.