FROM OUR BLACK PROPAGANDA DESK IN LONDON

FOR THE FIRST year of his invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was suffering from every disease known to man, and a few that were new. Every move he made was a sign of fatal illness, every part of his body betrayed a hideous fate awaiting him. And then it stopped.

Well, now, with Ukraine’s military not performing in the manner of the Premier League Army it is supposed to be, Putin’s medical files have been reopened by Western Intelligence and what do you know he’s terminally ill once again. His Parkinson’s Disease, which apparently went away, has returned. And the western press, or presstitutes as they might be described, are sucking it up through a straw.

Now he may well be ill, and he will almost certainly die, some day. But the clumsy way in which the former KGB agent’s health is tossed about tells more about the agencies peddling the news than it does about the Kremlin hard man. Black propaganda is a subtle art, gently riding along on solid facts, not a wretched attempt to shore up defeat with the same story over and over again.