A former spy chief has accused a scared Vladimir Putin of using body doubles over assassination fears.
Lt-Gen Valeriy Kondratiuk, ex-head of Ukraine ’s military and foreign intelligence, described the Russian leader as a “madman” and “tyrant” who was obsessed with his security.
He told the Kyiv Post newspaper that suggestions Russia was now run by Putin puppets were wide of the mark.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also enraged Moscow by telling the Davos 2023 forum that he could not make out if Vladimir Putin “is still alive”.
Kondratiuk, 52, said: “A person who has been in power for a long time, any tyrant, tries to take additional measures for his own security.
“In order to prevent terrorist acts during public events, such as visiting public places or meetings, he often uses doubles.
“The real Putin is where he meets with the defence minister at a large table, where the distance between him and [Sergei] Shoigu is far enough.”
Yet "when he stands near the people at some events, awards – this role is played by doubles to reduce the risks of any assassination attempts.”
Asked whether these doppelgängers could now be ruling Russia, he said this was not the case.
“It is the madman Putin who is behind this war,” he said.
He continued: "He is personally responsible for the amount of grief and tragedy that has occurred because of his decisions. I don’t think any double would be as crazy and support it.
“If Putin is gone, then it’s crazy to support this war. I don’t even see anyone in Putin’s environment who would be interested in continuing his policy.”
Earlier Ukrainian General Kyrylo Budanov said Putin employed lookalikes who had undergone plastic surgery.
“We know specifically about three people who keep appearing, but how many there are, we don’t know,” he said.
“They all had plastic surgery to look alike.”
This echoes Russian Telegram channel General SVR which has made similar claims over a long period. The channel publishes many unfounded claims but claims to have Kremlin insiders.
The channel said today that Putin “has worked so well on substitutions with his main double that any professional illusionist, including David Copperfield…would envy such tricks”.
Putin was reported on Friday to have carried out a visit to the remote subarctic Arkhangelsk region, visiting the sanctions-hit Ustyansk timber complex.
But local journalists Yaroslav Varenik and Anton Danilov who arrived to cover the presidential event were unceremoniously detained and not allowed to see him.
‘We were detained almost immediately,” said Danilo. “A man approached me, took my phone and deleted all the photos and videos."
Kondratiuk headed Ukrainians foreign intelligence service in 2020-21, and military intelligence in 2015-16.
Body doubles have been routinely used by former Kremlin leaders, for example longtime Soviet supremos Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev.
Putin three years ago admitted that officials urged him to follow the trend, but he claimed the idea was rejected.
"I discarded the idea of any doubles,” he said, referring to the early days of his rule.
