Rumours about Vladimir Putin’s health have been circulating for weeks following claims that the Russian President suffered a cardiac arrest and died. These reports, made by the Russian Telegram channel General SVR, are unverified and have - for the most part - been dismissed. However, a new analysis of video content of the Russian President has since come to a shocking conclusion.
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David Pope, founder of Speech and Craft Analytics, carried out a comparison between two videos of Putin. AI reviewed the content from a recent speech Putin gave just last week and an older one he gave back in May 2023. From the results, Pope said ‘with 99% confidence that this is a different speaker’. Here’s what we know about the body double rumours and about how Pope came to his conclusion.
Putin body double rumours
There has already been much speculation surrounding Putin’s public appearances. Of late, some of his behaviour has seemed out of character and, in a recent video, it seems that a man who looks a lot like Putin even admitted to the body double rumours.
Nick Strogov, a human rights researcher, explained:
Within the professional community, a prevailing consensus is emerging: the presidential administration may employ individuals resembling Putin for events not necessitating his verbal engagement but demanding his presence, particularly for photo opportunities.
Putin’s preference for video-conference participation in meetings with world leaders is only adding fuel to the flames.
Pope’s AI analysis
Pope’s analysis used footage from Putin’s recent speech at the World Russian People’s Council and his earlier appearance at Russia’s Victory day in May. Pope explained to Daily Express US:
Our voices are a little bit like our fingerprints. We have identifiers, like the use of our throat muscles. Your voice can be an identification metric.
The study compared ten ‘speaker recognition features’, and the results were pretty stark: seven out of the ten were statistically different. The elements that were analysed to draw this conclusion included frequency and vowel articulation.
These results left Pope convinced that the two men from the videos are different people. His results seem to justify what many have been suspecting for years: that the Russian President uses body doubles. However, this is something that the Kremlin have always denied, and - as if often the case with Russia - we will likely never get a clear picture of the truth.
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Sources used:
Express:Vladimir Putin body double twist as AI expert '99% sure' one used at recent appearance
Express: Putin 'body double' rumours explode after Russian leader's bizarre comment in video
