A Scottish terrorism expert is convinced Russian leader Vladimir Putin is using a body double on public appearances.
The Russian president was accused by the Ukrainians of using a stand-in on a surprise visit to occupied Mariupol last Sunday - to protect himself from assassination.
SAS-trained Graham Yuill is skilled in facial recognition, which he used when serving in Northern Ireland to identify terrorist suspects and more recently working for the UK Government vetting visa applicants, reports the Daily Record.
The 65-year-old, from Glasgow, said: “Each person’s face has unique characteristics that can determine if he is real or fake however the photographs last week of Putin in Ukraine do not match all his facial characteristics.
"The hair, ears and eyes were perfect. But his nose, chin and the space between the nose and the lips - called the philtrum - were wrong.
“The people protecting him did not look like professional guards either. There was also not the normal high levels of security that you would normally see for such a visit such as an armoured vehicle.
“You can tell by just looking at the photograph of Putin that something is not quite right.”
Graham is trained in computerised facial recognition techniques using up to date software. He says a simple visual inspection can be just as effective which he used on photographs of Putin in Mariupol be just as effective.
Graham added: “Recently, I carried out specialist security work with a Home Office approved company based in the centre of Glasgow. My job was to identify likenesses of people who had applied for visas to live in the UK.
“I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt after studying recent footage of Putin moving around Ukraine that he is using a body double because he is paranoid of being assassinated. The double is even trained to walk like him and may have had surgery on his ears.”
Graham, who is now a private security consultant, recently published a best seller on the Salisbury novichok poisonings.
He joined the Royal Military Police in 1974 from school and then became part of the Lord Provost Company which provided armed escorts for senior military personnel in Northern Ireland during the troubles.
He also worked at Belfast International Airport - then called Aldergrove - spotting terrorist suspects arriving and leaving the country. In the past Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro and Field Marshal Montgomery have used body doubles.
Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, is also said to employ stand-ins and sends them to public events.
Putin has dismissed speculation he employs a lookalike. His trip to Mariupol was his first to captured territory since the invasion began last year.
It came after the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president for alleged war crimes. The Russian leader flew into the city on an army helicopter and drove himself to meet residents in a rebuilt apartment block.
Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence, has claimed the Russian leader uses a team of three doubles.
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