The Moscow Times reports that Russia’s Ministry of Health has pressed research institutes to provide immediate updates on their efforts to combat aging, cognitive decline, and osteoporosis, as well as to strengthen the immune system.

"We were asked to urgently send all of our developments, and the letter arrived, let’s say, today, but everything had to be sent yesterday," one researcher told Meduza.

The urgency is reportedly driven by Mikhail Kovalchuk, a 77-year-old scientist and close friend of Putin. Kovalchuk, who heads the Kurchatov Nuclear Research Institute and has ties to a state-funded genetics program that includes Putin’s eldest daughter, endocrinologist Maria Vorontsova, is said to be leading the push for life-extension research.

"The big boss set the task, and officials rushed to implement it in every possible way," according to a Kremlin insider.

Kovalchuk is described as being "obsessed with eternal life."

He reportedly pitched the idea to Putin.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I am wondering whether any analysts at the CIA or similar agencies picked up on this years ago in his psychological profile (i.e., the narcissism, paranoia, germophobia, lack of a succession plan, and such) and started making plans. Perhaps there’s a biotech startup in, say, Serbia or somewhere, funded in 2007 with opaquely sourced seed money, “researching” “cellular de-aging” or something, with convincingly faked tests giving just enough promise. The research is fake, of course, and the business is meant as bait to be acquired by a Kremlin entity or one of Putin’s human-wallet oligarchs, at which point Putin’s fate is in the hands of whatever spooks are controlling it.