Does it matter if Putin uses a body double?

Was it Vladimir Putin or wasn’t it? ‘Vladimir Putin’ was certainly shown on television being helicoptered into Crimea this week, meeting ‘the people’ and driving himself around reconstruction sites in the devastated city of Mariupol.

In the wider world, though, there was widespread scepticism that it was the real Russian President. Clips were posted on social media showing the supposedly different chin-line and puffier cheeks of the latest ‘Putin’, while even the BBC injected a note of doubt into some of its despatches, using words like ‘reportedly’ to qualify his (potential) visit.

There have long been rumours that Putin uses a body-double – although it is also possible that his apparently different facial features are because of medical treatment. If Putin does use a double, he would not be the first Russian leader to do so, nor the first national leader worldwide.

Long before Putin, Stalin was one of those reputed to have deployed a double, largely for security reasons.