There has been a rising tide of conjecture over the past week about Putin’s absence from public view, which has come at the same time that loan bankers reported fleeting glimpses of loans from a variety of Russian borrowers. Some of the reports about the Russian premier have gone so far as to suggest that he has died, fuelled by the Kremlin’s line that the “the topic is closed”.
But the rumour mill has thrown out a wildly varying array of possibilities: that Putin has suffered from a cosmetic surgery mishap, that he gone to ground with flu in his Valdai countryside home, that he is being treated for back pain in Moscow by an Austrian doctor, or that he is attending the birth of his child in Switzerland by Russian MP Alina Kabayeva.
There is even a Twitter hastag #putinumer (putin died) trending on the topic and a website of the same name.
Loan Ranger’s first thought was that there might be something in the Swiss connection. After all, he had recently witnessed what the ravages of the country’s cheese did to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
But this is not Putin’s style. And Loan Ranger’s sidekicks Tonto and Silver – who themselves have just reappeared after a long hideout god knows where – put forward a much more plausible explanation – that Putin had heard about the loan sightings and is out there in the woods trying to track them down.
After all, such creatures have become rarer than the Asiatic black bear. Loan Ranger has it on good authority (Tonto and Silver again) that Putin wants to be at the head of the search party and has vowed to personally wrestle whichever of the bears or loans he finds first.