Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev also said Putin, 62, was OK. The Russian leader, he said, “just now drove me around the grounds; he himself sat at the wheel,” Reuters reported.
Putin has rarely disappeared from the public view during his lengthy tenure as president. His predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, sometimes went a while without making public appearances due to his poor health.
During the past week, his spokesman attempted to dispel the rumors. “No need to worry, everything is all right. He has working meetings all the time, only not all of these meetings are public,” Peskov said on Thursday, according to CNN.
Peskov likewise dismissed the rumors about Putin fathering a child.
“I am going to ask people who have money to organize a contest on the best media rumor,” he joked.
