It's not my impression that Putin overly cares about Russia's public image abroad. And plausibility seems a good reason for "why now". You need to be very naïv

It's not my impression that Putin overly cares about Russia's public image abroad. And plausibility seems a good reason for "why now". You need to be very naïve to not strongly suspect foul play here, or in other cases of people falling out windows and whatnot, but you can also never be quite sure. Not really. So there is at least some plausibility that it was "just" an accident, or "just" illness, at least when trying to sell this to the Russian people.