Putin Claimed to Have Two Identical Workplaces: 1 in Moscow, the Other at the Seaside

Mr. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, explained the presidential get the job done spaces outside the house Moscow and in Sochi are not similar. “This is not real,” he instructed journalists on a conference phone on Wednesday. The Proekt report, Mr. Peskov stated, was 1 of a collection of the latest exposés about Mr. Putin’s private everyday living that ended up an “information marketing campaign, an data attack” on the president.

“The president has several workplaces and no equivalent places of work,” Mr. Peskov said. He challenged Proekt’s use of flight data to contradict official statements about Mr. Putin’s whereabouts. Presidential planes are at times centered outside of Moscow, he said, but he declined to go over distinct flights, noting the movements of the head of state are classified for security reasons.

Mr. Putin has told the Russian information media that he has rejected designs to use subterfuge to protect his stability. In February, he instructed the Tass information company that, early in his tenure, he declined to use a body double to deceive probable assassins.

This yr, verifying Mr. Putin’s whereabouts has only grow to be far more tough as he has taken extraordinary safety measures towards the virus, even by the benchmarks of other heads of point out.

Russian journalists who address the president in the Kremlin pool have rarely viewed him up shut given that March, reporters have claimed. Visitors are expected to quarantine for up to two months just before coming inside of respiratory distance. And even then, right before conference Mr. Putin, they have to walk by way of a disinfecting tunnel — a construction resembling an airport metal detector that sprays a high-quality mist of antiseptics.

The president has conducted so several televised meetings by video connection that condition tv about the summer time ran a exclusive report on the web site, noting the microphones and screens readily available for meetings — and determining it as found at the authorities home outside Moscow, not by the seashore.

One particular website that republished the story, T Journal, elicited hundreds of remarks from visitors poring about photographs of Mr. Putin, suited and severely conducting point out small business, seated in likewise showing up places of work. Some found signals of a ruse.