Vladimir Putin Mocked Over Accusations He Sent Body Double To Ukraine 'For The Sake Of A Video Photo Shoot'
March 20 2023, Published 7:30 p.m. ET
Vladimir Putin was ruthlessly mocked after he allegedly sent a body double of himself to Ukraine for a wartime photo op, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The 70-year-old Russian leader came under fire on Monday after he was accused of sending a doppelgänger to Mariupol, Ukraine, over the weekend to visit Putin's troops fighting on the frontlines of the ongoing war.
But while Putin seemingly hoped his visit to Mariupol would strengthen the morale amongst his struggling forces, Kyiv official Anton Gerashchenko spoke out to suggest the man who visited Ukraine was not actually Putin.
According to Gerashchenko, the chin of the alleged body double did not match the chin of the real Putin.
Gerashchenko also shared three photographs to make his point, indicating this may not have been the first time the allegedly ailing Russian leader used a body double to make a high-security visit since the Russo-Ukrainian war started last year.
“What’s up with your chin, Putin?” Gerashchenko quipped in a post alongside the pictures of the Russian leader, according to Daily Star.
“Looks like lately his make-up artists (i.e. for the recent trips of the bunker man to the occupied Crimea and Mariupol) had to work with quite a low-quality copy, not even a double but its copy,” the Kyiv official added.
“I wonder which one of them was real?”
General SVR, an anti-Putin Telegram channel that claims to have sources inside the Kremlin, defended Gerashchenko’s assertion and indicated Putin did not visit Crimea or Mariupol over the weekend.
“The information from the Kremlin's resources that Vladimir Putin visited Crimea and Mariupol is NOT true,” said the Telegram channel on Monday. "In Crimea, a double of the president was noted with a short visit and solely for the sake of a video photo shoot.”
General SVR also revealed Putin’s alleged body double was “forbidden to conduct meaningful conversations” and “hold long meetings” over fears of “embarrassment or another mistake of the understudy.”
“The President was at that time many hundreds of kilometers away, warm and completely safe,” the channel said.
Never miss a story — sign up for the RadarOnline.com newsletter to get your daily dose of dope. Daily. Breaking. Celebrity news. All free.
Never Miss an
Daily updates from the heart of Hollywood, right to your inbox
By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you’re agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
As RadarOnline.com reported, this is the second instance in which Putin has been accused of utilizing a body double in a matter of days.
Last week, a former KGB spy and Putin associate named Sergei Zhirnov not only suggested the Russian leader uses doppelgängers, but he also claimed to have evidence that Putin regularly used fake look-alikes.
"He has a totally different shape of eye orbits, a totally different head, absolutely different wrinkles - a different voice,” Zhirnov said while citing an appearance made by a Putin body double in Moscow on February 22.
