Vladimir Putin’s team reportedly carries a suitcase to collect his poo when he travels

The explosive claims, made by French investigative journalists Regis Gente and Mikhail Rubin, say that the Federal Protection Service (FPS) officers who accompany Putin on his international visits are charged with collecting his excrement in special bags which are kept in a dedicated briefcase. They claim that this has been the case for years.

It is believed that the president does this to ensure that foreign adversaries are unable to learn private details about his health by testing his waste. Ex-BBC journalist Farida Rustamova backed up their claims, saying a source told her that this has been practised since Putin first assumed power in 1999. Rumours about Putin’s health have circulated for years, with people speculating that he has cancer or has had a stroke – however, these claims have never been verified.

Foreign nations testing the bodily fluids of other world leaders is not an unprecedented move. The BBC reported in 2016 that former Soviet agent Igor Atamanenko had discovered that Josef Stalin had analysed the waste of Mao Zedong when he visited the USSR.

Stalin’s secret police reportedly set up a department in the 1940s dedicated entirely to testing excrement. When Mao visited Moscow in 1949, the secret police had installed special toilets that directed to boxes – rather than sewers – where they collected the Chinese leader’s waste.

Depending on what was found during the analysis, it could tell them whether a person was calm or had a nervous disposition. It has also been alleged that President George W. Bush travelled with a special portable toilet on a visit to Vienna in 2006