Igor Girkin, a former commander of the separatists in Donbas, one of the critics of the military command in Moscow for the way it conducts the war, says that the only moments when President Vladimir Putin is real and not a double are when the head of the Kremlin appears alone or at the end of the table, away from his guests.

• “The real Volodymyr Volodymyrovych was at Christmas, sitting alone in the Kremlin church. unmarried!
• The priests were probably afraid to approach him. It was probably a sniper who warned that he would shoot if they came closer than 20 meters.
• This is the real Volodymyr Volodymyrovych, who, receiving ministers, sits alone on one side of the table and looks at them through binoculars.
• – “Where am I?”
• This is real. But the one who decorates, unites everyone, is others
• And the one who gives speeches… when I see Putin in the crowd, I immediately see an imitator. And no one knows what this double is saying. He must be talking nonsense.”

In fact, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, General Kyrylo Budanov, said that Vladimir Putin has at least three lookalikes who have had plastic surgery to look like the Kremlin leader.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov said that Ukrainian services had discovered Putin’s “doppelgangers” who had replaced the Russian president in a number of “special cases” in the past, but now it had become a “common practice.”

Budanov also stated in an interview with HotNews that the Ukrainian services have “confirmed information that at the last events in which Putin would have participated, there were actually people who replaced him.”

Igor Girkin’s statements are made in the context of the Kremlin’s statement on Saturday that Putin came to Crimea to celebrate the 9th anniversary of the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. Moreover, he would personally drive the car in which he walked around Sevastopol.

In a bold move, Putin also visited Mariupol, a Ukrainian city occupied by Russian forces, on Sunday.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, charging him with war crimes in the illegal deportation of at least 100 children from Ukraine.

The move would oblige the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and hand him over to The Hague for trial if he enters their territory.

Moscow has repeatedly denied allegations that its forces committed atrocities during the invasion of Ukraine.