The mystery of the cloned offices: Putin's unhealthy obsession with security

MoscowOfficial accounts claim that Vladimir Putin spent the worst moments of the pandemic and the days following the invasion of Ukraine at his official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, a half-hour drive from the Kremlin. The Russian president wants to project the image of a leader who is always on the front lines, but that image is false. An investigation by Project System, the investigative unit of Radio Svoboda, has demonstrated for the first time that Putin has three virtually identical offices that he uses to make everyone believe he is in one location when, in reality, he is in another. This is just one of the tricks of a ruler obsessed with his security to the point of paranoia.

The original office in Novo-Ogaryovo, built in 2015, has two replicas that were built in the following years: one at the presidential residence in Sochi, a Black Sea resort city, and another in Valdai, at another unofficial state mansion in a wooded area. Putin, whom the pandemic made even more hypochondriac and solitary, spent much of the COVID crisis between these two residences, away from the capital. In Sochi, he could enjoy the sea breeze in a house overlooking the ocean, and in Valdai, he took refuge with his secret family: former gymnast Alina Kabaeva and their children.

The existence of several identical offices was reported years ago, but until now, no one had found proof. Andrei Soshnikov, editor-in-chief of Sistema and author of the investigation, explained to ARA that the key to uncovering the truth lay in the details. After reviewing hundreds of recordings from the last ten years, they observed that the offices—all a bland beige, austere, and practically unfurnished—presented minute differences. For example, in one of them the doorknob was positioned slightly higher than in the others, the seams of the wooden wall panels didn't align, the legs of the television stands weren't identical, and the ventilation holes had varying sizes depending on the office.

They also verified that people in Putin's entourage and the journalists who were going to interview him bought tickets in these locations and booked hotels near the residences. Furthermore, they were given explicit instructions not to mention the real destination in their travel plans and not to explain it to anyone. In other words, it's a large-scale conspiracy involving hundreds of workers to conceal this reality.

A secret train network

According to journalist Konstantin Gaase, quoted by Sistema, Putin began to fear for his safety following the assassination of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, he became convinced that a missile attack on his residence was a real possibility. Since then, the Russian president's security measures have become increasingly extreme, reminiscent of those employed by Saddam Hussein. A high-ranking security official who had worked with him and defected in 2022 explained a few months later that Putin's entourage even includes a food taster because he has a "pathological" fear of getting sick. According to this account, the Russian president travels using a secret network of trains, often uses convoys of fake cars or decoy planes to mislead potential threats, doesn't have a mobile phone, and only learns about events through intelligence reports, which further isolates him.

"The Kremlin uses these tricks for security and convenience. I don't even know which of the two reasons is more important," Soshnikov points out. One of the almost daily classics is the release of canned videos in which Putin receives dignitaries in his office. To make it appear as if they correspond to the day they are broadcast, the guests are asked to dress the same as on the day of the broadcast, although they are often betrayed by small details such as accessories. This allows Putin to spend more time in Valdai, close to his family.

Fear of Ukrainian drones

The Sochi office disappeared from the recordings in early 2024. The Russian president temporarily abandoned that residence because it is too exposed to Ukrainian drones. In the last year, he only appeared once in Novo-Ogaryovo, the only office that exists according to the Kremlin. He doesn't feel protected there either. In contrast, fourteen air defense systems have been installed in the Valdai forests (in Moscow, for example, where twenty million people live, sixty are deployed).

Despite this almost cartoonish obsession, Soshnikov is against conspiracy theories that claim Putin has doubles. "I'm sure he doesn't use one; there's no proof," he says. From his point of view, mythologizing your opponent weakens you, since it's necessary to understand their motivations. "This search is a way to raise the bar for how the Kremlin can be investigated today, when it is perhaps less transparent than ever," he concludes.