Inside Putin's bizarre daily routine involving getting up at unusual hour

24 September 2023 , 06:53

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Putin has an unusual daily routine which doesn't get going until much later in the day (Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The Russian President's bizarre 'morning' routine has been laid bare as it's revealed he lies in for hours.

Vladimir Putin is said to demand an unusual breakfast and refuses to deal with business before a daily swim, according to an author. Ben Judah has lifted the lid on the tyrant, with revelations that the leader has been known to take two-hour swims where most of his thinking and strategising is done.

While many world leaders are known to be early risers, the same can't be said about Putin, who Mr Judah writes doesn't get up until midday. The reclusive president, who last year ordered the invasion of Ukraine, also starts the day with cottage cheese alongside porridge or omelettes.

Putin is known to love swimming and cannot start his day without a session (RIA NOVOSTI/AFP via Getty Images)

His preferred breakfast is quail's eggs washed down with fresh juice and a slurp of coffee, Mr Judah writes. The president's meals meanwhile are sampled by a food tester beforehand in case one of his many enemies has laced it with poison.

According to Pravda, a Soviet Community Party title, Putin also sticks to a super healthy diet of tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce, while he's also known to love fish and mutton and swerve anything sugary. his food comes fresh from land belonging to Patriarch Kirill - leader of Russia's Orthodox Church - and fuels the president's monster swimming sessions.

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Political assistants to the leader has claimed he is partial to two-hour swimming workouts to mentally prepare for the day. Courtiers for the president are said to hang around in lacquered-wood waiting rooms during his time in the water, with Putin's swims sometimes even followed by a gym workout for his bizarre macho photoshoots.

While the 69-year-old leader pumps iron, Russian TV projecting Kremlin propaganda blares in the background, according to Mr Judah. It's a few hours before Putin finally gets to work, and members of his team bring briefings on paper to his computer-free desk.

Putin is said to carry out his affairs on paper tidied into red files because of fears of cyber attacks, and carries out his phone calls on Soviet War-era telephones. The overlord then turns his attentions to the day's news, and is said to enjoy reading a specific column about himself penned by Andrey Kolesnikov in the Russian daily, Kommersant.

"He is obsessed with information," Mr Judah writes in the 2014 profile of the president, Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin. "The thickest, fattest folders at his request are not intelligence reports: they are press clippings.

"His hands first open the Russian press digest. The most important papers come at the front: the obsequious national tabloids. These matter most, with their millions of readers."

Susie Beever