Vladimir Putin has a cold

 Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has canceled some of his public appearances this week after coming down with a cold, a Kremlin spokesman said.

"The president has a cold," Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Tuesday. “It’s winter.”

It was a rare acknowledgement of physical vulnerability from the Kremlin around Putin, whom it normally portrays as a fanatically fit workaholic possessed of almost super-human vitality. Putin, 65, has constructed an image built on physical strength, making regular appearances meant to emphasize it, from televised judo matches to shirtless horse-riding, to ice hockey games where the president is most often the runaway scorer.
 Last month, he took a plunge in a hole cut in the ice of a frozen lake as part of Russian Orthodox Epihany traditions.

Putin will still continue working, Peskov said, but he won’t attend an event planned for Wednesday at Moscow’s VDNKh exhibition, instead hosting participants at the Kremlin or at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo near the city.

The liberal station TV Rain reported that Putin will also skip a trip to Russia’s far east planned for Feb. 19-22, citing two people close to the visit’s organizers. Peskov denied that the trip, which wasn’t publicly announced, had been cancelled, according to the state news agency, RIA Novosti.

Source : abcnews