Putin’s mother’s limp body was added to the cart. Walking home, Putin’s father saw his wife, and saw her take a shallow breath. He pleaded to keep her, to which the medic replied, “That’s just more work—we’ll have to come back for her dead body soon.” But Putin’s father prevailed. He carried his wife back to their frigid home. She survived and after the war gave birth to a second baby boy, Vladimir Putin. “And so,” said the Russian prime minister, “I have no siblings.”
