Kremlin spokesman on doppelganger: "Putin - do we have one"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has publicly mocked speculation about alleged doubles of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Now experts are puzzling over whether there are three or four and who we see every day," said Peskov to young people in Moscow, referring to discussions on social networks about possible doubles of the Kremlin leader. "Putin - we have one," said Peskov at the "Rossiya" forum with a large exhibition on achievements in the world's largest country in terms of area under the Kremlin leader, who has led Russia for more than 20 years and is also likely to run in the presidential election in March.
Peskov had recently repeatedly rejected reports that Putin was using doubles or was ill. For example, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, had repeatedly claimed that Putin was terminally ill. The "dictator" had no fewer than three doppelgangers who had been adapted to Putin's appearance through plastic surgery.
Putin: "I have dispensed with doppelgangers"
Putin himself once said that he had been advised to use a double for official appointments in the past for security reasons. "The idea came up, but I refrained from using doubles," he said.
There is constant speculation about the health of the 71-year-old, who has been in power for almost 25 years - mainly as president, but also occasionally as head of government. Putin himself likes to emphasize that he keeps fit through sport. How healthy the Kremlin leader is, however, is a question in Russia ahead of the presidential election in March 2024. Putin has not yet announced his candidacy. But it is generally expected that he will be re-elected.
The huge "Rossiya" exhibition will showcase Russia's development under Putin in 14 pavilions until April. The more than 80 regions of the country are presented, from Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to Siberia and Kamchatka on the Pacific and from the Arctic in the north to the Caucasus in the south. The regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, which belong to Ukraine and which Putin wants to take over completely in the course of his war, as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, are also presented as part of Russia.
- Despite the rumors of multiple doubles, the Head of state, Vladimir Putin, affirmed during the "Rossiya" forum that "Putin - we have one."
- In an earlier statement, the Head of state clarified that he had rejected the suggestion of using doubles for security reasons during his leadership.
- The people's interest in the health of the Head of state, who has been in power for over two decades, remains a topic of discussion ahead of the upcoming elections in March.
Source: www.dpa.com
