Putin Always 'Surrounded By Doctors' As Illness Throws Kremlin Into Chaos: Ex-British Intelligence Official 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is surrounded by doctors due to his health conditions, throwing Kremlin into chaos, former British intelligence official Christopher Steele has said in an interview.

Steele, who provided the infamous unverified dossier that revealed possible Russian interference in the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s links to Moscow, said Putin is “constantly accompanied around the place by a team of doctors.”

“Meetings of the security council that are shown to supposedly last for a whole hour are actually broken up into several sections... he goes out and receives some kind of medical treatment between those sections,” the former MI6 official said Wednesday on Britain’s leading talk radio network LBC, according to Yahoo News Australia.

It’s “certainly having a very serious impact on the governance of Russia at the moment,” Steele said. “There’s increasing disarray in the Kremlin and chaos in fact, that there’s no clear political leadership coming from Putin who is increasingly ill, and that in the military’s terms the structures of command and so on are not functioning as they should."

His comments come around the same time when another former MI6 chief predicted that Putin will likely land in a long-term medical facility by 2023.

Speaking on the One Decision podcast last week, Sir Richard Dearlove said the 69-year-old could be replaced as Russia’s president next year and be sent to a sanatorium. His comments came as rumors continue to swirl over Putin's ill health.

“I’m really going to stick my neck out. I think he’ll be gone by 2023,” Dearlove said. adding, “Probably into the sanatorium, from which he will not emerge as the leader of Russia.”

Concerns about Putin’s health condition made the rounds almost around the same time when the war in Ukraine began. There have been speculations that the Russian leader was undergoing several health conditions. The rumors resurfaced recently after Putin appeared to be clinging to a table during a meeting with Russian oligarch Sergey Chemezov. He also appeared unsteady during an Orthodox Easter service in Moscow last month. The incident occurred days after he was speculated to have undergone surgery to remove fluid from his abdomen.

There have also been rumors that Putin had 35 secret meetings with a cancer doctor — and has turned to unconventional therapies. However, there has been no official statement about Putin's health condition.

The International Business Times also could not independently verify these claims.