Experts think they’ve figured out why Russian president Vladimir Putin walks in an unusual way. People have noticed that when he walks, his left arm moves normally, but his right arm stays stiff and doesn’t swing. Some thought this might be a health problem, but experts now believe there’s a different reason behind it.
Putin, who used to work in the KGB (Russia’s former secret service), may have learned this way of walking during his training. In the KGB, agents were taught to keep their right hand close to their chest so they could quickly grab a weapon if they were in danger. This might explain why his right arm doesn’t move when he walks—it’s a habit left over from that kind of training.
A group of researchers, including Professor Bastiaan Bloem from the Netherlands, studied Putin’s walk. They looked at videos and found that he often keeps his right arm still. They wrote about their findings in a medical journal in 2015. They called this style the “gunslinger’s gait,” suggesting it’s not a medical issue but a learned behavior from years of training.
Interestingly, the same walk was seen in other top Russian officials who also had military or KGB backgrounds, including Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov. This pattern shows that the stiff-arm walk may be common among people trained to be ready for danger at any moment.
So, while it might look odd, it’s likely a habit formed from training rather than a health issue. It may seem a bit strange, but for Putin, it might be his way of staying alert and prepared—just in case.
