After Vladimir Putin’s speech at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Internet users began to actively discuss the broadcast frame in which the president’s hand appears partially blue. We decided to look into this story.
October 27, 2022 Vladimir Putin accepted participation in the final plenary session of the XIX meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. After the broadcast of the event, many publications appeared on the Internet in which users suggested that the 70 year old the Russian President's bruise was visible. Typically, such recordings are accompanied by a close-up shot of Putin’s right hand, in which you can see that it appears to have taken on a dark blue hue.
As Ukrainian publications report, “Gordon" And "Apostrophe“, on social networks, a frame with a dark spot on the hand of a Russian politician was compared with photographs of Elizabeth II taken shortly before the queen’s death. Also Can find assumptionsthat this bruise is a mark from an IV catheter. Such posts can be found on Twitter (examples here, here, here, here And here), "VKontakte» and Telegram. For example, in the channel “Ukraine 24/7” posted frame with Putin’s hand and asked: “What’s wrong with grandfather’s claw?” (212,000 views). Also part users believes, that the viral screenshot of the recording of the speech was changed in a graphic editor. On the website of the Ukrainian TV channel “Channel 24” too told about Putin’s blue hand, but added: “Of course, one can assume that this is how the light plays. However, we cannot be sure of this.”
Let's start with the fact that the photographs of 96-year-old Elizabeth II, with which the frame with Putin is compared, are genuine. September 6, 2022 Queen spent an audience with Liz Truss, during which she officially took office as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain. Contrary to tradition, the reception passed not at Buckingham Palace, but at a residence in Balmoral, Scotland. On photographs the skin on the queen’s hands actually looked darkened, and just two days later, on September 8, Elizabeth II died.
Earlier media quoted Dr. Deb Cohen-Jones, who statedthat the dark blue tint of the queen’s hands is one of the signs of peripheral vascular disease. “It is a circulatory disorder that causes narrowing, blockage, or spasm of blood vessels outside the heart and brain,” she explained. Similar problem with the queen's hand shade noticed back in 2021, then among the possible reasons experts allocated Raynaud's disease and cyanosis. These same diseases on some sites explain and the color of Putin's hand.
As for the images of the limbs of the President of the Russian Federation, they were not processed, so this is not the result of Photoshop. We looked carefully recording public broadcast of the Vesti television program and calculated that the president was shown at least nine times during his 42-minute speech from the podium from the angle at which the screenshot of the hand was taken. In total, Putin's right hand, as captured in the viral footage, could be seen for about one minute, so it is not surprising that many viewers noticed this moment and were able to take screenshots. Below is a screenshot we took, where you can actually see the unnatural dark blue tint of the right hand.
However, the dark spot on the president’s hand is not a bruise, but, most likely, only a shadow or glare from some surface (it is important to note that the general color scheme of the event, as seen in frames And video, includes many blue shades). Below we attach several screenshots: the first was taken before Putin’s speech began, the next two were taken during his speech, and the last one was taken immediately after it. None of the four images show any suspected bruising or darkening on the hand.
You can verify the absence of cyanosis (or darkening) on the hand by viewing dozens of frames from the forum, posted on the website of the American photo agency Getty Images. As for the veins protruding on the hands, they can be seen in photo and video materials published on the official website of the President of Russia and in 2017, and in 2019, and in 2021 year.
Publications about the dark blue hand fit well into narrative about Putin’s health problems, a topic that has been discussed more than once recently carried out investigations (for example, the publication "Project" *) and wrote in the media. Since most often such publications mainly refer to anonymous sources, it is almost impossible to verify them using open data fact-checking. However, we can say for sure that the so-called bruise on the president’s hand is just a visual effect resulting from some external factor, such as a shadow or glare.
*The Ministry of Justice included “Project Media” in scroll foreign and international non-governmental organizations whose activities are recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / video from the TV channel “Constantinople» (vk.com)
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