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Did Vladimir Putin really use a body double during his recent visit to Mariupol, Ukraine? That’s the question posed by several posts that began circulating on social media on March 20, 2023. However, while these posts claim to show evidence of physical differences in the president’s face, the images they rely on are far from conclusive.
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The Kremlin reported on March 19 that the Russian president had visited war-ravaged Mariupol, a city in eastern Ukraine which has been occupied by the Russian army since May 2022. 

But this surprise visit, only announced by Moscow after the fact, fuelled rumours online. According to a number of posts shared on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram, Putin actually sent a body double in his place. 

The allegations are based on an image which compares three photos of the Russian president, said to have been taken on February 21 in Moscow, March 18 in Sevastopol, and March 19 in Mariupol. The image highlights differences in Putin’s facial structure, presented as evidence that it was not he who appeared in Mariupol. 

The image was even shared by Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine, and shared more than 6,000 times. 
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However, these images do not prove anything: they were taken over the course of several years, and capture the Russian president’s different facial expressions, which explains the visible differences.
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Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022, Vladimir Putin has often been accused of using look-alikes or body doubles during his travels. Some posts online accuse the president of hiding from public view, because he is afraid or doesn’t trust his entourage.

These suspicions are often fuelled by Ukrainian media and officials.

The Ukrainian media outlet The Kyiv Post, for example, picked up on the three photos shared recently, asking Ukrainian military intelligence official Andriy Yusov about it. “A man who looks like Putin visited Mariupol,” he commented simply.

In October 2022, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, told Ukrainian television that the Russian president was using “at least three look-alikes” who had undergone “plastic surgery” to look more like him, as reported in British tabloids such as The Daily Mail. These allegations have never been independently proven.

Vladimir Putin has also been repeatedly accused of using extras during his travels.

https://observers.france24.com/en/europe/20230322-why-these-images-do-not-prove-that-vladimir-putin-sent-a-body-double-to-mariupol

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