1/5
Russian President Vladimir Putin wears heels for a state visit to Moscow University.
Physically, he’s not exactly the greatest – at least he can help out here. Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin (70) is said to wear cheat shoes to help his height on the jumps, as reported by “Bild” with reference to his recent state visit to Moscow University.
In the pictures, the six-foot-tall man can not only be seen with heels, but also in the center of a row of students, with the tallest ones emphatically on the sidelines. So Putin looks less small.
Is it even about Putin? The rumor that the Kremlin boss is seriously ill has been around for a long time. We are talking about dementia, Parkinson’s or cancer. According to the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service Kyrylo Budanov (37), Putin therefore has doubles – three at once, as the British tabloid “Daily Mail” reports.
The Ukraine spy wants to attach this to the “varying size” of the Russian head of state, among other things. Budanov: “Sometimes you can see different body sizes if you look closely.” Are heels an attempt to cover up these differences?
Extra surgeries to look more like Putin?
Budanov further supports his thesis that Putin’s earlobes would look different in pictures. «The ears are like a fingerprint, they are unique, they do not repeat themselves.»
However, the British tabloid “Sun” provides explanations as to why Putin’s ears may look different in older photos: they continue to grow and sag more with age. In addition, cosmetic surgery and botox could have changed the ears.
Budanov, in turn, claims that the doppelgangers underwent operations to look more like the Kremlin boss. He also claims to have identified inconsistencies in Putin’s behavior, with the Russian president appearing “livelier, more attentive, more nimble” on certain official appointments than on others, such as on his last trip to Iran.
«The disastrous invasion is atypical»
The intelligence chief goes even further: “The big question is whether the real Putin still exists.” In his view, the doubles are intended to help cover up a loss of control by the Russian president in the Kremlin. The Ukraine military man’s interest, however, is of course to make Russia look as weak as possible in order to allay the West’s fear of further involvement in the conflict.
The Ukrainian government has been surprised at the actions of the Russian leadership for a long time, Budanov continued. “The sometimes disastrous execution of the invasion does not fit Putin’s otherwise calculated course.”
But does the person concerned actually say so himself, if he still exists? A few years ago, Putin declared that he had rejected the idea of doubles. (twa)