Does Putin use a look-alike for his foreign trips? Russian and Ukrainian media say yes

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently made a series of battlefront visits to Ukraine, such as Mariupol, Crimea and Sevastopol. His image has drawn attention, as he looks closer and his face is different, which has fueled speculation that he is using a lookalike.

This was announced by the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta (Nuevo Diario) which pointed out that in recent months “we have seen two different Putins”.

“We are extremely cautious, not to say paranoid. He meets his own foreign ministers and heads of state at a huge table,” the newspaper said, adding that in a meeting with reporters he sat far away.

When he accepted the ambassadorial credentials, he, standing a giant distance away, said we were “still in quarantine” and did not shake their hands. In a meeting with representatives from Central Asia, he occupies half of the giant round table and at the top of the Caspian in Turkmenistan the table is square, but he continues to keep his distance, details the media.

As a sign of the caution shown by the Russian president, the newspaper points out that he has built a special railway line, in which employees who serve Putin are examined several times a week and quarantined in individual rooms. As he sat alone in a VIP box at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022, his residences were outfitted with three identical rooms, so enemies wouldn’t know where he was.

Novaya Gazeta said that over the past six months another Putin has appeared, the one who personally travels along the Crimean Bridge, visits Mariupol at night driving a car and even visits the frontline territories in a helicopter.

In a similar vein, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Secretary Oleksiy Danilov has called the person Russian state media claims to be Russia’s president an ‘ordinary double’ who was shown visiting. in the occupied regional city of Mariupol in Donetsk in March and in the partially captured region of Kherson. this month.

Danilov has provided no evidence to support his claim, and Putin’s presidential administration categorically does not comment on whether doubles are being used to replace the Kremlin leader.

“There was no Putin there. This is something well known. To communicate with the real Putin, you need to spend at least 10-14 days in quarantine,” Danilov told local television.

When Putin visited Mariupol last month, the Kyiv Post newspaper asked Ukrainian military intelligence official Andriy Yusov for his opinion. He simply noted: “A man who looks like Putin visited Mariupol.”

The Kremlin was forced to issue an extraordinary denial that Putin is using doubles and hiding in nuclear bunkers. The president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, a senior Kremlin official, insisted the Russian president was in good health.

Speaking to teenagers and children at an educational event broadcast on state television, Peskov admitted there were many reports of Putin lookalikes, but called the president “mega active”.

“You may have heard that Putin has several doubles, which work for him while he sits in a bunker,” he said.

“Those who work alongside you are struggling to keep up. One could only be jealous of his energy level. His health, you can only wish for yourself. Of course, he never sitting in a bunker; that’s also a lie. And you see, it’s obvious,” Peskov added.

Veteran Russian political analyst Valery Solovey is among those insisting that Putin is using actors, something he did last week when he was spotted in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region meeting his war generals.

“It was his doppelganger. Everyone knows that,” Solovey told interviewer Arseny Vesnin on Russian YouTube channel Ischem vykhod.