At the end of August 2023, a video went viral that allegedly showed how the President of the Russian Federation tried to look at the time on the watch on his left hand, although he wears it on his right. The video, in particular, has revived the debate about Putin's alleged doppelgängers. We tried to understand this story.
On August 22, a short video went viral on the Internet, which captured an episode of one of the meetings with the participation of Vladimir Putin. The authors of numerous posts on social networks and publications in the media claim that the politician forgot that he was not wearing a watch on his left hand and tried to look at the time on it. Moreover, the recording actually shows that the Russian president raised his left hand to himself with a bent hand and looked at it.
For example, Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko (2.8 million views of the post at the time of writing this analysis) wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter): “Putin forgot that he wears a watch on his right hand. Or is it not Putin? What's happening?" Similar reaction was Russian politician Lyubov Sobol (297,000 views): “How can this even be explained? He actually always wore a watch on his right hand.” There are also publications about the presence of doubles of the president. For example, the Twitter account “Electric Uralosaurus” (238,000 views) commented a popular video like this: “When a double wore a watch on his left hand all his life, but according to the script he had to put it on his right.” And The Insider edition (286,000 views) joked: “The new clone is getting used to the role of Putin.”
Russian sites News.ru And "Main regional“They called the episode caught on video “curious.” Ukrainian publications wrote about how embarrassed the Russian president was and about his possible dementia “Correspondent", Obozrevatel, "Channel 24", N.V. And "Censor.net" Talking about how Putin forgot which hand his watch was on, ex-deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma Nikolai Bondarenko on his YouTube channel “Diary of a Deputy” (265,000 views) remindedthat recently French President Emmanuel Macron allegedly tried to hide an expensive watch during an interview - “Verified” already refuted that story. Posts about Putin’s alleged gaffe are also found in “VKontakte", TikTok, Facebook and Telegram - for example, in the channels of Ukrainian bloggers and journalists, including Anatoly Shariy (837,000 views), Sergey Sternenko (266,000), Yuri Butusov (143,000) and Andrey Tsaplienko (128,000).
Putin has actually been wearing a watch on his right hand for many years, as confirmed by numerous photographs And video. At the same time, the Russian president has repeatedly explained why he does not use his left hand for this. So, in 2002, during a “Direct Line” talk about this habit of his asked TV presenter Ekaterina Andreeva:
— There is one more question. Mr. Foss, Moscow. The question that I selected, by the way, also interests me very much: “Why does Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin wear a watch on his right hand? Are you left-handed?
- It's a habit. No, I'm not left-handed. I like them to dangle on my wrist. But this crown, if it’s on the left hand, then it’s turned towards the hand and rubs all the time... It hurts... That’s the whole secret, there’s nothing special here.
Same thing Putin repeated in 2018 at the Media Forum of regional and local media “Truth and Justice”: “I have already said: so as not to pick them out of there... They hang on my wrist. And if you hang them on your left hand, then this crown spins - it’s uncomfortable, it hurts. That's why I moved them here. It's a long time ago."
As for the video we are analyzing, it is genuine and cut from a video recorded on August 22, 2023 during a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, which Putin spent via video call. At the same time, the vast majority of the posts and news items mentioned above use a six-second excerpt from the broadcast from the Telegram channel “Have you listened to Mayak" - this can be understood by its logo in the lower right part of the video.
Full recording meeting was published on the official website of the President of Russia. The entire video lasts 1 hour 43 minutes, and the desired fragment begins at the 54:41 mark - at this time Putin hears the report of the deputy chairman of the Russian government, minister industry and trade by Denis Manturov.
The first thing that catches your eye when comparing the original footage with the version from “You listened to Mayak” is that the viral video was cropped, that is, it lacks a significant part of the visual range. In the original recording, numerous stacks of documents are visible on Putin’s desk, with which the politician worked during the meeting. When the playback is slowed down, you can see that in the now viral excerpt, Putin began looking at one of the papers lying to his left before he even raised his left hand. Moreover, he holds his hand almost pressed to his body - right above the edge of the table, to which his elbow rests, although to view the time on his wristwatch, on the contrary, it would be more convenient to extend his hand in front of him. At the end of the excerpt, the President places his left hand on the documents he viewed earlier.
“Verified” studied the entire recording of the meeting and found two more moments when Putin held his left hand in a similar way while working with papers. Thus, this position of the hand does not necessarily prove that the president wanted to look at his watch at that time.
Ukrainian edition NV tried explain Putin's alleged mistake this way: “Probably, during the meeting, the head of the Kremlin regime got bored, and he took off his watch and started with it play, as he often does with improvised objects, and then he simply forgot which hand he even put them on.” However, this argument does not seem tenable, since almost the entire time of the meeting the watch was on the right hand, and for the first time it can be seen lying on the table only at around 1:38:58, that is, approximately 44 minutes after the passage that became viral.
As for the theory that Putin has a double, it is not yet possible to prove or refute it using fact-checking methods using open data, but this was not the purpose of the analysis.
Thus, based on the above arguments and analysis of the video, it can be said with a high degree of probability that Putin did not forget which hand he was wearing his watch on, but simply held his hand for a moment to read the documents.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / kremlin.ru
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