Kyiv challenged yesterday Wednesday a statement in which its president Russia, Vladimir Putinrecently visited war zones in Ukraineclaiming that he did not go himself, but his bodyguard.

“That was not the real Putin,” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security Council, told Ukrainian television without providing any evidence. “To talk to the real Putin, you need to be in isolation for 10 to 14 days,” he continued.

According to a Kremlin press release yesterday Tuesday, the Russian president recently traveled to the war zone in Ukraine, met with Russian troops fighting on the front lines in the Kherson and Lugansk regions, and held consultations with senior military officers.

“As we know, there are quite a few of them”

This is the second Putin-announced visit to Ukraine after he ordered the Russian military to invade the neighboring country on February 24, 2022. The exact date of the visit of the President of Russia is not specified. The Kremlin has released a short video showing Vladimir Putin exiting a helicopter and shaking hands with uniformed soldiers.

According to Mr. Danilov, the man who went to Kherson was a “spy” for Mr. Putin: “As we know, there are quite a few of them,” he added.

The Ukrainian official also said that the Russian president was “terrified” and therefore could not be that he decided to visit the soldiers on the front lines. According to Mr. Danilov, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the “diametrically opposite” case, as he has repeatedly been to the fronts, and Vladimir Putin, according to him, is “the grandfather who hides in the basement”, who will soon “be afraid of himself.”

^{Source: APE – MEB, dpa}