The most likely explanation is unfortunately not very dramatic. There is a fairly brutal flue epidemic in Moscow that has reportedly floored around half the population. According to various reports it’s a nasty strain that leaves its victims prostrate for days and can take well over a week to bounce back from. Invoking Occam’s Razor, my money says he has a bad case of the grippe and the Russians just can’t bear admitting that their great leader can be felled by something so mundane.
....”There is a fairly brutal flue epidemic in Moscow that has reportedly floored around half the population. According to various reports it’s a nasty strain that leaves its victims prostrate for days and can take well over a week to bounce back from”.....
Well I had it here in the US...and let me tell you you are really put down with this stuff....I actually broke blood vessels coughing ....and not uncommon to relapse, which I did 2 days later after returning to work, for another two weeks.
It was two months before I really felt like things were getting normal again. The cough hangs on forever!
I have to say the worst illness I had in my lifetime.
If he were sick, wouldn’t they just say he’s feeling under the weather and had to cancel his meetings the week?