MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Tuesday denied a report that President Vladimir Putin was ill, and laughed off persistent rumours that he used body doubles to cover for him in public appearances.
“Everything is fine with him, this is absolutely another fake,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about an unsourced report by a Russian Telegram channel, picked up by some Western media, that the president had suffered a serious health episode on Sunday evening.
The spokesman laughed in response to a question about body doubles, and denied that Putin had any. “This belongs to the category of absurd information hoaxes that a whole series of media discuss with enviable tenacity.”