(Metro) Rumours of Vladimir Putin body doubles have been circulating since the outbreak of the war and now Japanese AI analysis appears to confirm this.
The research based on body movements, facial recognition, and voice comparison and aired by Japanese TV network TBS, reveals there are several different versions of Putin.
It suggests doppelgangers could have been used before the war and they have aged alongside the 71-year-old dictator.
While Putin body doubles have been denied by the Kremlin, Russian sources and Ukraine’s military have appeared to confirm them in the past.
It has also been alleged the dictator is seriously ill and uses body doubles to disguise his ill health.
The analysis found the Putin who hosted this year’s annual Red Square Victory Day parade on May 9 was real.
But the Putin who inspected the Crimean Bridge ten months ago was only a 53% match with the Putin on Red Square.
Another Putin appearance – at the war front in occupied Mariupol in March – shows only a 40% facial recognition likeness with the Putin seen on Red Square.
The findings were revealed on TV in Japan (Picture: TBS News Japan)
Putin looks different during public meetings according to the research (Picture: TBS News Japan)
The dictator’s body movements, face and voice were analysed (Picture: TBS News Japan)
Shinji Hyodo, research secretary for the National Institute for Defence Studies, said: ‘I personally found it interesting that a lot of people were saying that the person visiting Mariupol was not Putin himself.
‘And here we see the scientific analysis proving the point.’
There is only an 18% facial recognition likeness between the Putin on the Crimean Bridge and the Putin in Mariupol.
‘Experts on face recognition would refer to this as “not matching” in most cases, which leads us to the assumption this can be a double,’ said the commentary.
Voice analysis of Putin was also conducted at Japan’s Institute of Audio Communication Laboratory.
It analysed voice biometrics concentrated on the word ‘spasibo’ – or ‘thank you’ – uttered by ‘Putin’ on different occasions.
Research found Putin’s voice could belong to two different people (Picture: TBS News Japan)
The Putin who addressed the Eurasian Economic Union Forum held in May 2023 – assumed to be the real dictator – was found to be different to three other ‘Putin’ appearances.
It concluded Putin’s voice was different at the forum to other Putin examples at different appearances.
‘Other than the difference in pronouncing the sound ’s’, there is a remarkable gap in pronouncing ‘pa’ and ‘si consecutively,’ said the narrator.
Expert Mutsutoshi Muraoka said: ‘There is a difference in the recording conditions, as well as the utterance as it is, but still it is extremely rare to have such strong differences.
‘We have to say at this point that the possibility of these two voices belonging to different people is high.’
While the voices are superficially similar, the analysis graphs show them to be different.
It suggests a double was used at the military support concert in February and the Mariupol visit in March, when the same doppelganger was deployed.
When Putin met Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko earlier this year there was a high match of 94% it was the same Putin.
