Putin kissing fans sparks body double conspiracy theory

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Ellie Cook

By Ellie Cook

Senior Defense Reporter

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Videos of Vladimir Putin greeting and kissing fans has sparked a flurry of suggestions online that the Russian leader has been using a body double.

During a state visit to the Russian republic of Dagestan, Putin shook hands with gathered members of the public, who appeared to be excited and cheered at they met the Russian leader. In one video, he kissed the head of a schoolgirl who was posing for a photograph with the Kremlin chief.

The clips have inspired a resurgence of a popular conspiracy theory around the use of body doubles for Putin's public engagements. Moscow has denied that Putin uses doppelgangers, saying in April that this is "yet another lie."

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There is no evidence to corroborate the claim, but the theories have still flourished online, with one Twitter user saying the footage from Dagestan showed how "the fearless double rushed into the crowd with everyone to hug."

"Putin's body double was in Dagestan yesterday meeting crowds," another social media user posted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

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"Putin body double on the loose," Jason Jay Smart, a contributor to Ukrainian outlet the Kyiv Post added on social media. "The real Putin doesn't meet folks unless they do quarantine for a week," he added.

Earlier this year, a former senior Russian security officer said that the Kremlin leader "surrounds himself with an impenetrable barrier of quarantines."

"Why was Putin in Dagestan so unlike Putin, i.e. up close & personal with the crowds?" the BBC's Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, then wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

Former Russian officer-turned-nationalist military blogger Igor Girkin wrote on Telegram on Thursday that it was a "person vaguely resembling the president (and not at all requiring compliance with the two-week quarantine necessary to get an appointment with the president) walked around Derbent."

Although there has been no proof that the Kremlin leader has used body doubles, Ukrainian officials have previously said Putin does use stand-ins.

"Putin uses doubles," Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Kyiv's military intelligence agency, told Ukrainska Pravda earlier this month. "This is a fact that is based both on operative intelligence and on the assessments of physiognomists and many other specialists."

"He would never talk to alleged local residents," Yusov continued to the outlet.

Keir Giles, an expert on Russia and a senior consulting fellow at the Chatham House think tank, suggested to Newsweek in March that the Kremlin leader could have used a body double during a trip to the Russian-controlled southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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