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.
