THE MYSTERY over the whereabouts of Vladimir Putin deepened yesterday as Russian state media broadcast — then retracted — reports that he had hosted an official visit from the president of Kyrgyzstan.

The Russian president has remained out of public view for nine days. Levels of fear and uncertainty in Moscow have been rising as rumours fly over what could be behind his disappearance.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that there is anything amiss, dismissing suggestions that he is ill, dead, victim of a palace coup or in Switzerland to be by his girlfriend’s side as she gives birth. Mr Putin’s next public appearance is scheduled for tomorrow, when he is due to meet Almazbek Atambayev, the Kyrgyzstan president, in St Petersburg.

But that encounter was thrown into confusion on Friday night as announcers on state television, apparently reading from an incorrect script, described the meeting in the past tense.

Rossiya 24, the channel involved, later described the incident as a mistake, but it deepened suspicions that state media is covering up for Mr Putin’s unexplained absence.

Meanwhile, Swiss media reported that Alina Kabaeva, a gymnast turned parliamentarian who is allegedly Mr Putin’s girlfriend, had flown to Lugano, Switzerland, to give birth to a girl at the clinic of Santa’Anna di Sorengo.

But the reports diverged on when she had given birth. The tabloid newspaper Bilk claimed that Mr Putin was present when his 32-year-old alleged lover gave birth to the baby. Other reports said the president had reserved two rooms at the clinic, one for his girlfriend and the other for her bodyguards, and had stayed with friends nearby. But Corriere del Ticino, an Italian lan- guage Swiss newspaper, claimed that Miss Kabayeva had the baby two weeks ago and Mr Putin “never set foot” in the clinic.

A spokesman for Mr Putin told the Russian edition of Forbes magazine that “information about the birth of a baby fathered by Vladimir Putin does not correspond with reality”.

Mr Putin has not been seen in public since meeting Matteo Renzi, the current Italian prime minister, on March 5.