Vladimir Putin and other top-ranking Russian officials' KGB weaponry training has left them impaired by a reduced arm swing labelled gunslinger's gait, experts claim. The gait, featuring a consistently reduced right sided arm swing, is usually considered an early sign of Parkinson's disease. However, movement disorder experts discovered KGB training manuals that stressed agents move in specific ways, offering a possible explanation for the damage. Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with a curious gunslinger's gait a reduced swing in his right arm which he may have acquired through KGB weapons training, an unusual study published Monday said. The research, published in the British medical journal The BMJ, was written by a team of neurologists in Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands. Specialists in analysing postures and movements that are potential signs of health disorders, they say they were struck by Putin's distinct way of walking. Video footage shows that when Putin walks, his left arm swings normally but his right arm barely moves. Asymmetrical movement like this is often a telltale sign of Parkinson's disease.
But the doctors found no other symptoms of this disease in Putin, such as tremor, rigidity or poor coordination. Quite the opposite, in fact: they found he had excellent motor skills, as a judo black belt, weight lifter and swimmer, and his handwriting is fast and signature tremble free. But their investigations turned up an intriguing alternative explanation in the form of a training manual used by the former Soviet intelligence service, the KGB. The manual, which they had translated into Dutch, instructs operatives to keep their weapon in their right hand close to their chest and move forward with one side usually the left turned somewhat in the direction of movement.
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