Large numbers of people with the flu in Moscow may force the Russian president to isolate himself in a bunker.
There is already speculation that Vladimir Putin will go into hiding until the New Year to protect himself after he canceled his year-end press conference.
Putin is obsessed with threats to his health, setting up an unusually long table during the pandemic to chat with colleagues and world leaders.
There are also rumors that he suffers from a condition as serious as cancer, which is being kept hidden from the Russian people.
“Many people in the Kremlin were affected by the flu,” attributing the revelation to Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Putin is likely to abandon the speech in the upper house of parliament because he has nothing new to say about the war.
The flu surge comes after Ukraine struck targets deep inside Russia. “The latest attack on military airfields deep in Russia has caused serious concern to Putin,” General SVR said on Telegram.
It is also claimed that Putin and his rumored girlfriend Alina Kabaeva, 39, will spend the New Year in a bunker east of the Ural Mountains.
Putin usually addresses Russians with a pre-recorded New Year’s message broadcast at midnight across his country’s 11 time zones.