Putin reveals previous associates ask ‘is it truly you?’

Vladimir Putin has complained that his previous associates typically not recognise him amid rumours he commonly makes use of physique doubles.

The Russian dictator, 71, advised an viewers within the nation’s distant Chukotka area that college and college classmates don’t consider it is actually him.

‘When I [very occasionally] meet my classmates or fellow college college students, they typically have a look at me and say – “I don’t believe it, is it actually you, or not you?”,’ he mentioned.

‘You see, an individual does not all the time understand how they’d behave after they discover themselves at a sure stage of accountability.’

Dr Valery Solovey, a former professor at Moscow‘s prestigious Institute of International Relations [MGIMO] who claims Putin is lifeless and has been absolutely changed by doppelgängers, seized on the remark.

‘The so-called ‘Putin’ publicly complained that his associates not recognised him and believed that they have been coping with a double,’ he mentioned.

Solovey – who as soon as taught future Russian spies and diplomats – was challenged by a prime Ukrainian TV interviewer Dmitry Gordon over his extraordinary and weird claims that Putin died in October 2023 together with his physique stashed in a freezer whereas his safety chief Nikolai Patrushev is secretly working the Kremlin.

A disbelieving Gordon quizzed him: ‘Now it seems that Putin is alive [and not dead as you said]. So you inform me, is he within the freezer or is he alive and nicely?’

But the tutorial – branded a international agent by the Kremlin – hit again: ‘He is in a freezer. He was moved in December to a brand new fridge…to at least one designed to retailer our bodies. 

‘That’s the one change that applies to him after his demise [in October]. There have been no different modifications. So all the data I’ve given you stays the identical.

‘And there isn’t any likelihood of him being resurrected.’

He predicts later this yr Putin’s demise can be introduced and 46-year-old agriculture minister Dmitry Patrushev – by then appointed prime minister – will succeed him.

Dmitry Patrushev is the son of Nikolai Patrushev, 72, secretary of the highly effective Russian safety council.

Rumours about Putin utilizing a physique double have circled for years, starting from Solovey’s wild claims to the suggestion that he makes use of a look-a-like for safety causes, using somebody to stand-in for him throughout official engagements, or for well being causes.

Internet sleuths have forensically in contrast images of Putin over time, claiming they present discrepancies in his options from one public look to the following. 

And earlier this month, an alleged physique double for Putin was ‘named’ as a ‘fourth-rate carpenter’ from Belarus, claimed to have survived an assassination try.

Yevgeny Vasilyevich was ‘recognized’ because the ‘fundamental doppelgänger’ for the Russian president because it was alleged he had been poisoned with ‘poisonous substances’.

He ‘developed rashes on the pores and skin of the higher and decrease extremities and on the neck, which medical doctors initially mistook for an allergy’, elusive Russian Telegram account General SVR asserted on January 4 – with out offering proof.

The channel, famend for its audacious claims about Putin’s ailing well being, is amongst a number of sources to have claimed a number of Putin lookalikes are commonly deployed.

General SVR claims to have inside information of the Kremlin whereas offering no laborious proof and being seen by many as a supply of conspiracy theories.

The nameless account emerged in 2020, previous to the invasion of Ukraine, claiming to be run by former and present members of Russian official our bodies.

It has since made quite a few unfounded and unproven claims about Putin and his administration, which add gasoline to the hypothesis.

Now famously, the account prompted a uncommon public clarification from the Kremlin after claiming final yr Putin had fallen down a set of stairs and dirty himself.

The hypothesis ran rife in June when Putin made a shock go to to town of Derbent in southern Russia simply days after the failed Wagner riot. Footage confirmed the despot diving right into a night-time crowd like an actor on a pink carpet.

Seemingly imbued with recent vitality after averting a small-scale civil struggle the week earlier, the usually stoic and remoted Putin was uncharacteristically personable, shaking arms and planting kisses on the top of a younger teenage lady who gushed over him and pleaded together with her mom to snap a photograph of her with the president.

In one other weird second he shook arms with – and appeared to regulate one thing on the uniform of – an officer carrying what could have been his nuclear briefcase.

He has not greeted his safety apparatchiks in such a means beforehand.

The scene was markedly totally different to the intense measures of the previous few years which have enforced strict quarantines for anybody exterior of Putin’s shut circle earlier than assembly him, and has implement social distancing.

The Kremlin has even been compelled into denying the physique double rumours.

‘Everything is ok with him, that is completely one other pretend [rumour],’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted in October when requested a couple of report that Putin had suffered a severe well being episode.

Peskov then laughed in response to an extra query about physique doubles, and denied that Putin had any. 

‘I can let you know there aren’t any doubles in relation to work and so forth,’ Peskov mentioned. 

He added: ‘These [kinds of stories] belong to the class of pretend information, mentioned with enviable tenacity by quite a few media retailers. 

‘This brings nothing however a smile [in the Kremlin].’