When an Alleged Putin is in the Crowd he is Actually a Double

Igor Ghirkin, the former commander of the separatists in Donbas, one of the critics of the military command in Moscow for the way he conducts the war, says that the only moments when President Vladimir Putin is the real one, and not a double, are those when the leader from the Kremlin appears alone or at one end of the table, away from his guests.

• “The real Vladimir Vladimirovich was at Christmas, sitting alone in the Kremlin Church. Single!
• The priests were probably afraid to approach him. He was probably a sniper who warned that he would shoot if they got closer than 20 meters.
• This is the real Vladimir Vladimirovich, who, when he receives ministers, sits alone on one side of the table and looks at them through binoculars.
• – “Where am I?”
• This is the real one. But the one who decorates, unites everyone, are others.
• And the one who gives speeches…, when I see an alleged Putin in the crowd, I immediately see an impersonator. And no one knows what this double says. He’s probably talking nonsense.”

Igor Ghirkin is a nationalist militant and former FSB officer who helped launch the 2014 war in the Donbas region. He also commanded the pro-Russian separatists in Donbas after the outbreak of the war 9 years ago.

Several foreign analysts and commentators have noted that one of the reasons why Ghirkin is given such freedom of speech is that he never criticizes President Vladimir Putin, blaming all the failures of the armed forces sent to Ukraine on military command in Moscow.

Putin would have at least three arrivals

In fact, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence services, General Kirilo Budanov, stated that Vladimir Putin has at least three look-alikes, who have undergone plastic surgery to resemble the Kremlin leader.

Major General Kirilo Budanov said that Ukrainian services had detected “doubles” of Putin who stood in for the Russian president on a number of “special occasions” in the past, but this had now become “common practice”.

Budanov also stated in an interview for HotNews that the Ukrainian services have “information, confirmed, that at the last events in which Putin would have participated, in reality there would have been some people who replaced him.”

Igor Ghirkin’s statements come in the context in which the Kremlin announced on Saturday that Putin went to Crimea to celebrate 9 years since the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. Moreover, he would have personally driven the car in which he walked around Sevastopol.

In a defiant move, Putin also visited Mariupol, a Ukrainian city occupied by Russian forces, on Sunday.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, charging him with the war crime of illegally deporting at least 100 children from Ukraine.

The move will oblige the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he enters their territory.

Moscow has repeatedly denied allegations that its forces committed atrocities during the invasion of Ukraine.