Does Russian President Vladimir Putin only have "days or months left" because he has cancer? No, that's not true: It has not been officially confirmed and there is no conclusive evidence proving that Putin has cancer or that he has undergone cancer treatment.
The claim appeared in a TikTok a video (archived here) published by @tordadavid on June 6, 2023. The TikToker's main claim is as follows:
According to first hand information Putin's days are counted. His doctors said that he only has weeks or months left. Incredible news spreading in the media: It is possible that Putin started the war as he knew that he doesn't have much time left and he wanted to leave his mark in history.
(Translated by Lead Stories staff from Hungarian).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jul 4 14:20:22 2023 UTC)
Speculation about the Russian President's health has been ongoing since the beginning of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, however none of the allegations about illnesses he would be suffering from have been proven. The basis for such speculations are videos in which Putin's legs happen to be shaking during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko or his hands are gripping a table during a meeting with Russian minister of defense Sergei Shoigu in April 2022.
Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov told Russian state news agency TASS in July 2022 that Putin is in good health and the rumors about his health situation are all fake.
U.S. classified documents that Air National guardsman Jack Teixeira has been accused of leaking, in 2023, claimed that Russian officials tried to undermine their own military efforts to hurt President Putin while he was supposedly receiving chemotherapy on March 5, 2023. While Putin did not appear in public on that day, he reportedly attended several meetings the following week and there were no reports of substantial Russian military setbacks on that day.
CIA Director William Burns said during the Aspen Security Forum in July 2022:
There are lots of rumors about President Putin's health and as far as we can tell he's entirely too healthy.
There is no conclusive evidence proving that President Putin has cancer and that this is the reason why he started a war against Ukraine, and according to his official schedule Putin has been working continuously since the war broke out, attending meetings, public events and giving speeches.
