The fact that Vladimir Putin surrounds himself at various public events with close people who do not challenge him, and especially that in some situations some people appeared in several frames, social networks are full of various claims that the President of Russia Vladimir Putin surrounded the actors. for his New Year’s performance and at previous events. But who are these people really? The BBC used facial recognition software to verify some of these claims.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a history of posing at events where some attendees were not what they appeared to be, including a famous meeting in November with the “mothers” of Russian soldiers killed in the war in Ukraine. Then it turned out that the women who were present at the meeting with Putin are actually representatives of pro-government structures.

A BBC Russia investigation in 2020 found that some events presented as impromptu conversations with ordinary people were actually full of friendly local officials.

Blonde

Posts on social media and news sites such as the Sun and Daily Mail suggested the blonde played different characters at several events with Putin, including a fishing trip in 2016 and a church service in 2017.

Others, including a Ukrainian news site, say she may be part of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSS), the security force that guards top executives.

The BBC used facial recognition software to compare the face of a woman in a New Year’s picture with a face from 2016 and 2017, showing poor match results of 29% and 28% respectively.

“Typically, a similarity score of 75% or higher should be considered when looking for an identity match,” says Professor Hassan Ughail, director of the Center for Visual Computing at the University of Bradford.

The BBC then compared footage from events in 2016 and 2017, which gave a 99.1% result, strongly indicating it was the same person.

This woman was called right-wing in the Russian press Larisa Sergukhina. At both events, she appeared in the Novgorod region, where she is a member of the regional parliament from the United Russia party, which supports Putin.

Putin and Sergukhina in 2016 on a fishing vessel / PHOTO Oleksiy Druzhinin / Sputnik / Profimedia

When the BBC compared her boat photo from 2016 with the official profile on the regional parliament page, it matched 99.8%. Sergukhina is also listed as the founder of a fish trading company in Novgorod.

The woman from Putin’s New Year’s message was called right in the Russian press Sydorenko Hanna Serhiivna, captain and military doctor. A comparison of her face from the event with an image taken from a video interview published online by the Russian newspaper Isvestia showed a 99.5% match. Her name also appears in the list of servicemen of the Russian military regiment published by the Ukrainian special services.

Fishermen

The BBC looked into claims about a group of male fishermen photographed with Putin on a boat in 2016, which included Larisa Sergukhina. The same men were also allegedly photographed attending a service in 2017.

Novgorod fishermen with Putin and Medvedev, 2016 / / PHOTO Oleksiy Druzhinin / Sputnik / Profimedia

A comparison of the faces on the boat to the faces in the church using facial recognition software showed a similarity of more than 99% for all four men.

The BBC found evidence that all of them worked in the Novgorod region and at least three of them were fishermen.

PHOTO Facebook/east2west news / WillWest News / Profimedia

Oleksiy Lyashenko is the leader of the fishing crew that took a picture with Putin.

The BBC was able to verify this through their social media accounts, as well as from the crew’s published online profiles.

Yevhen Lyashenko is Oleksiy’s son, a member of the fishing team. Both Oleksii and Yevgeny have social media accounts that confirm that they are father and son.

The brigade is part of the local agroconglomerate Eurochemservice, whose deputy general director is Larisa Sergukhina.

And about Serhii Alexandrov, the Russian press says that he is a fisherman, and the BBC found his profile on the social network, in which he is depicted on a boat in a fisherman’s suit.

The BBC was unable to find the number 4’s social media profile, but did find a photo of him with someone commenting: “How’s Putin doing?” and the answer: “He met Putin several times at work in Novgorod.”

In another image posted online, it is claimed that two of these fishermen met Putin in the guise of farmers in the Stavropol Territory. But when the BBC compared the highlighted faces of farmers with the faces of two fishermen, the facial recognition showed less than 8% similarity between the two.

Ice cream seller

There have been several other examples of blondes being singled out as potential actors at events in the past, including two images of a woman serving ice cream to Putin at an air show in 2017 and 2019.

The images are taken from the side and are of a lower resolution, making facial recognition unreliable, so they cannot be used for comparison.

But the BBC found a 2019 Russian TV interview with a woman who claimed to be an ice cream vendor who served the president on both occasions.

And if it’s the same person, it wouldn’t be particularly surprising, given that both photos were taken at the same air show, which Putin attended two years apart.

People claim that the same woman who sold ice cream to Putin was posing as an employee of the Russian airline Aeroflot, but again, facial recognition is not a reliable tool for comparing images in this case.

It will be recalled that Putin chose a much safer option for the Christmas service, for the first time in recent years taking a photo alone in the Kremlin Cathedral instead of joining the faithful, the Russian press notes.