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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
While the war is ongoing, Russia is seeking an elixir of longevity.
Putin’s daughter, Maria Vorontsova, has become one of Russia’s leading medical researchers working on gene therapy and 3D-printed organs that could allow the president to “outsmart God,” The Times reports.
The strategy has two stages. The first involves following recommendations that a typical family doctor would give most people: eating properly, not overindulging in alcohol, and exercising as often as possible.
According to Maria Vorontsova, who has made extending life her life’s work, this should enable most people to live to 85–90 years. However, the second stage is much more difficult. It envisions the possibility to “outsmart God.”
After a quarter of a century in power, the 74-year-old Putin seeks more and enjoys thinking about the possibility of living forever. This goal has long attracted monarchs, despot[s], and billionaires. Vorontsova, an endocrinologist, has become one of the leading supporters of initiatives aimed at expanding the boundaries of human longevity in Russia.
41-year-old Vorontsova, who heads the Institute for Medical Research and Education at Moscow State University, spoke about these efforts last week at a forum in Moscow titled “Live Long, Live Differently.”
According to her, the results of this struggle are still modest so far. Yet she expects that over the next 10–20 years the existential fear of death will force the health system to “solve” this problem.
How exactly this will be achieved is still unclear. However, it involves huge state contracts, and attempts to dramatically extend human life apparently interest Putin, who has led Russia since 2000 and, it seems, has no intention of retiring.
During the summit in Beijing last September, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping drew attention in social networks and the media thanks to a microphone that allowed listeners to hear their thoughts on stopping the aging process.
“With the development of biotechnologies, human organs could be continuously transplanted, and people could stay younger for longer and even achieve immortality,” the translator of Putin into Chinese conveyed the Russian leader’s words.
The Chinese leader replied that previously “people rarely lived to 70, but today at 70 you are still a child,” after which he suggested that “in this century there will be a possibility to live to 150.”
Mikhail Zigar, the author of a book about Putin’s circle, called the pursuit of extremely long life in Russia “a foundation for billions in profits and brilliant careers.”
Putin often created an image of a strong and physically resilient leader: he hunted in Siberia, practiced judo, and flew fighter jets. Yet his obsession with his own health paints a very different picture: a middle-aged autocrat, detached from reality and isolated from his people.
Explaining last year’s Beijing remarks about immortality, Putin told reporters that “modern health-improvement tools, medicine, and even organ-replacement surgeries allow humanity to hope that active life will last differently than today.”
He noted that his friend Silvio Berlusconi “actively developed this topic.”
Berlusconi, who died in 2023 at the age of 86, had a personal doctor who developed an anti-aging elixir for him based on the long-liver diets of the Taklimakan and Gobi deserts in Central Asia.
Putin showcased his priorities in 2024 when he announced the launch of a national project “New Technologies for Health Preservation” with a price tag of 26 billion dollars.
The project envisages using medical innovations intended to save 175 thousand lives by the end of the decade. Analysts noted that this figure would partly offset Russia’s losses in the war in Ukraine.
The project also has practical aims: improving the health of the population and increasing life expectancy, which for men in Russia is 68 years compared with 80 in the United Kingdom and 77 in the United States.
Among those who promoted the project was Mikhail Kovalchuk — a famous physicist and a friend of the president who, according to a Kremlin‑affiliated source in Meduza, “dreams of eternal life and the Russian genome.”
Kovalev, whose brother Yuri has a reputation as “Putin’s personal banker,” controls the federal program for the development of genetic technologies. One of its coordinators is Vorontsova.
Deputy Minister of Science Denys Sekirinsky said in April that the country is developing a gene therapy drug aimed at slowing cellular aging by blocking a receptor associated with age-related changes in the body.
80-year-old Kovalevchuk is a controversial figure who heads the Kiratchov Institute.
He has suggested that the United States is creating “servants,” and last year he stated that the West plans to destroy most of the Earth’s population, leaving only a small elite whose needs would be met by robots.
Also in 2024 the year, Russia’s Ministry of Health sent letters to several research institutes urging them to accelerate the development of technologies that would “reduce the burden of cellular aging,” slow cognitive and sensory impairments, and adjust age-related deterioration of the immune system.
“When we received this letter, to be honest, I was stunned,” one Meduza researcher said. “I was puzzled by the very framing of the question. Of course, let’s work on restoring the health of these old grandfathers—as if no one else needs our attention. Just in the middle of the war [against Ukraine] we have to drop everything.”
The maximum human lifespan is believed to be about 125 years.
Fully functional human organs suitable for transplantation have yet to be created in a laboratory. Scientists also note that the consequences of numerous surgical interventions and the use of immunosuppressive drugs could be too harsh for an aging body.
Meanwhile, scientists at the Kiratchov Institute are exploring the possibility of creating human tissues and organs using 3D printing.
At the Moscow forum, Vorontsova proposed to international health regulators to adopt “aging” as a separate diagnosis. This would allow approving aging drugs, known as “geroprotectors,” which are currently in clinical trials.
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