The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

Putin Has Vanished, but Rumors Are Popping Up Everywhere Saturday March 14 th , 2015  at  6:45 PM 1 Share MOSCOW — Where’s Putin? The question obsessed Moscow and much of  Russia  on Friday, as speculation mounted as to why President  Vladimir V. Putin  had not been seen in public for more than a week. He abruptly canceled a trip to  Kazakhstan  and postponed a treaty signing with representatives from South Ossetia who were reportedly told not to bother to fly to Moscow. Most unusually, he was absent from an annual meeting of the top officials from the F.S.B.,  Russia ’s domestic intelligence service. The rumor mill went into overdrive, churning out possible explanations from the simple to the salacious to the sinister. He had been stricken by the particularly devastating strain of flu going around Moscow just now. He sneaked off to Switzerland for the birth of his love child. He had a stroke. The victim of a palace coup, he was imprisoned wit