Rumors of a stand-in revived after President Putin inspected troops in occupied Kherson last week.
The Kremlin has dismissed rumors that President Vladimir Putin has a lookalike stand-in to replace the 70-year-old leader, who spends most of his time hiding in a nuclear bunker.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov listed what he said was a fabrication about Russia in a speech about the country’s history since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the causes of the war in Ukraine and Western What society calls perfidy.
“You may have heard of him [Putin] When he was sitting in the bunker, there were a lot of doubles working for him,” Peskov told a conference in Moscow before chuckling: “Another lie. “
“See for yourselves what our president is like: he was and is very active — the people working around him can hardly keep up with him,” he said.
“His energy can only be envied. God bless him with health. Of course, he will not sit in any bunker. This is also a lie,” Peskov added.
The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed speculation that Putin, Russia’s top leader since 1999, is ill.
During a state visit to Moscow last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Putin he believed voters would back the Russian leader again in the 2024 presidential election. Putin has not said whether he will seek re-election.
Putin came to power promising to end the chaos that gripped post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s, but the invasion of Ukraine is the worst military crisis the Kremlin leader has faced since the 1979-89 Soviet-Afghan War.
The Ukraine conflict has ushered in the worst confrontation with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and Putin has decided to pivot from the West to China.
