Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a joint press assertion together with his Kyrgyz counterpart after talks in Bishkek on Oct. 12, 2023.
Vyacheslav Oseledko | Afp | Getty Images
There has been long-standing hypothesis that Russian President Vladimir Putin uses body doubles to face in for him at public engagements for well being or safety causes, however the Kremlin ridiculed the rumors Tuesday.
Asked by reporters to touch upon an unsourced report on a Russian Telegram channel claiming Putin had suffered a severe well being episode on Sunday — a report picked up by some Western media retailers nonetheless — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov laughed.
“Everything is ok with him, that is completely one other pretend,” Peskov stated, in line with a Reuters translation, denying an extra query on whether or not Putin uses any body doubles.
“This belongs to the class of absurd data hoaxes that a complete collection of media focus on with enviable tenacity. This evokes nothing however a smile,” Peskov added.
Putin has constructed a lot of his management on a picture of him as an lively, macho “powerful man,” and has even been photographed topless when driving a horse throughout fishing and searching journeys.
Aged 71, Putin is broadly anticipated to run for the presidency once more in 2024 following adjustments to Russia’s structure permitting him to take action, though he has not confirmed this.
Putin himself has denied utilizing body doubles however stated in a 2020 interview with Russia’s TASS information company that he had been offered the opportunity to use one for security reasons, throughout Russia’s second struggle in opposition to Chechnya within the early 2000s, however had not performed so.
“I refused to have doubles. It was throughout probably the most troublesome time of the struggle in opposition to terrorism,” Putin stated, with out giving additional particulars.
It’s not the primary time the Kremlin has rebuffed such rumors, which generally abound when Putin is pictured showing barely completely different, equivalent to having a special pores and skin complexion or not sporting a watch, for instance.
In April, Putin’s spokesman Peskov once more rejected the body double claims, saying, “you’ve gotten most likely heard that he [Putin] has very many doubles who work as an alternative of him whereas he sits in a bunker.”
Calling it “one more lie,” Peskov stated, in comments published by TASS, that “as a matter of truth, he has all the time been and is mega-active. We can hardly sustain with him – those that work with him. His vitality is enviable and one can solely want to be as wholesome as he’s,” Peskov stated.
“Of course, he would not sit in any bunkers. This can also be a lie,” Peskov added.
The president, a former Judo champion, is alleged to be very cautious of his well being, with extraordinarily strict measures launched in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic to restrict his publicity to the infectious illness.