A video showing a top Kremlin politician with Vladimir Putin has prompted a flurry of speculation that it does not feature the Russian President at all — but one of his body doubles.
The video, released by the Kremlin last Wednesday, shows deputy prime minister Dmitry Patrushev addressing the President in a slurred tone, in which he appears to be calling him “Pal Laich.”
The clip prompted a resurgence of rumours that this was proof of Putin’s alleged use of body doubles. Online chatter — joking or otherwise — wondered if Patrushev had slipped up, accidentally using a shortened form of “Pavel Nikolaevich” — supposedly, internet wags suggested, the real name of one of Putin’s doubles.
The Kremlin’s own transcript of the meeting corrects the speech to “Vladimir Vladimirovich”, the President’s first name and patronymic.
Rumours of the Russian leader using body doubles for his own safety have followed him for years.
A security slip-up — or just a flub?
The video is not necessarily solid proof of a Putin dupe, experts told The i Paper — but they acknowledged the likelihood that the President could use body doubles in other contexts.
Dr Mark Galeotti, Russian speaker and an expert in Russian security at the Royal United Services Institute, told The i Paper that the flubbed speech sounded like nothing more than a “very slurred contraction” of the patronymic “Vladimir Vladimirovich.”
Patronymics are shortened names that are used to convey respect.
The meeting between Vladimir Putin and deputy prime minister Dmitry Patrushev, left, at the Kremlin which prompted speculation about a body double (Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)“Vladimir Vladimirovich is quite a mouthful,” he said. “It’s quite normal that it gets contracted very dramatically,” he added. For security reasons, too, it is “extraordinarily unlikely” that Patrushev would know the name of a body double.Keir Giles, author of Russia’s War on Everybody: And What it Means for You, also a Russian speaker, said it was possible that Patrushev did use the wrong name — but questioned whether a body double would even be addressed using a patronymic, which is generally used to indicate you are speaking to someone more senior.
A body double was one possible explanation, he said — but “all we know is that he called him by the wrong name, and everybody’s getting all excited”.
Furthermore, the Kremlin, which exerts extraordinary control over Russian media, would be unlikely to release a video that showed any proof of a body double.
“The bottom line is, if that’d been a slip-up, then that footage would not have been released,” said Galeotti.
Why a body double would be little surprise
The rumours that Putin has body doubles are so established that they have become a running joke even in Russia, Giles said, adding that years ago, when there was more media freedom in the country, there had even been comedy sketches about it.
In 2022, Ukraine’s then-chief of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov threw fuel on the rumours when he claimed that Putin used three doubles, all of whom have had plastic surgery to look more like the leader. “The big question is whether the real Putin still exists,” Budanov said.
Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, also told The Sun this year that body doubles were “almost a normal security measure” for Putin.
Given the secrecy of Russia’s security apparatus, the matter is close to impossible to verify.
But for Giles, it is not an unreasonable assumption at all. “There is nothing startling or surprising about this,” he said.
He voiced reservations about viral “body double” rumours in general — but added that it “doesn’t alter the calculations of whether at any given moment we are likely to be looking at Putin, or one of his doubles”, he said.
Galeotti also felt that a body double was not unrealistic. He pointed to when, in 2023, state media released footage of Putin in occupied Mariupol in Ukraine, driving what looked like a civilian car and talking to ordinary people.
“I think there are some cases where clearly security means that someone else is playing the role of Putin,” he said.
However, he said, he doubted there was “some huge stable” full of them, because Putin’s public appearances were nearly always in official settings. “He would be doing sit-downs with foreign leaders, or press conferences and the like,” he said. “That’s not where you use a body double.”
Putin ‘has good reason to be paranoid’
Putin has long been known to take extraordinary measures towards his security. A Radio Free Europe investigation last year found that he used three nearly identical offices across the country to help conceal his location.
Dissident former Russian FSO (presidential protection service) officer Vitaly Brizhaty also told Business Insider that only a select few of Putin’s own security staff knew Putin’s travel plans, and that he used multiple decoy convoys when he travelled.
Recent media reports have hinted at a heightened security atmosphere around the Russian President. This month, a purportedly leaked report from an unnamed European intelligence agency described a “high alert” in the Kremlin over fears of a coup against Putin.
Putin particularly feared being assassinated by drones sent by his own political elite, the report said.
Galeotti noted that the report — which The i Paper has not independently verified — could itself be part of attempts to “sow confusion, and above all, suspicion within Putin’s inner circle”.
But even so, the stalemate in Ukraine — where Kyiv’s forces are beginning to seize the initiative — as well as internet restrictions in Russia, economic problems and increasing drone attacks on oil and gas refineries deep inside the country — may be laying on the pressure domestically.
Giles said that Putin “has very good reasons to be paranoid”.
He said: “Given the concerted efforts that his security services have put in over the years to try to kill [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky, it would be a reasonable and normal Russian assumption that somebody’s going to try and return the favour.”
“If they’re not more worried than usual, then they haven’t been paying attention,” he added, pointing to how Ukraine “is no longer a passive victim” and was inflicting damage on Russia regularly.
Galeotti summed it up pithily. “I think there is a certain degree of paranoia. But it’s the old joke, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.'”
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