Vladimir Putin‘s paranoia has consumed him.
Rumours of his use of multiple body doubles, food testers and a special armoured train outfitted for his own personal use have long dogged him.
According to a senior Russian security officer who defected in 2022, the Russian despot is ‘pathologically afraid for his life’.
So much so that he has created two replicas of his official Moscow office that allow him to fake his location at any given time, a new analysis of photos has revealed.
His office in Novo-Ogaryovo, a plush estate west of Moscow that has become Putin’s de facto residence, has been replicated in Sochi, on the Black Sea, and Valdai, halfway between St. Petersburg and Moscow, according to an investigation by Systema.
Analysis of his face to face meetings show that this year he has almost stopped using his sprawling rebuilt official Moscow region residence Novo-Ogaryovo.
Tiny differences between the rooms have allowed researchers to show that this year he has operated mainly from Valdai.
For instance, the panelling on walls behind Putin’s desk are slightly different, depending on which office he is in. Valdai has the highest panelling, followed by Novo-Ogaryovo and then Sochi.
The door handles in each office are also at slightly different heights. They are close matches in Sochi and Valdai, but are lower in Novo-Ogaryovo.
The letter trays on each of Putin’s desks are different, depending on which office he is in
The panelling on walls behind Putin’s desk are slightly different, depending on which office he is in
The positions of light switches are also different in each location. Though they are in roughly the same spots in Novo-Ogaryovo and Sochi, the light switch in the Valdai office is more central.
And the letter trays on each of Putin’s desks are different, depending on which office he is in.
Made from what appears to be polished stone, all have the same two-line wave on top of them.
But they each have their own distinct colours and patterns on them, suggesting they are all different.
The analysts studied 700 videos all labelled by Putin’s officials as filmed at Novo-Ogaryovo.
Some went back a decade with the researchers ‘paying attention to every detail’.
State TV crews are sworn to secrecy when filming Putin at his alternative locations, as are officials ordered to partly televised audiences with the despot.
While he has sent millions of Russian men to the war zone, Putin apparently prefers to retreat and hide far from the frontline – with officials saying he is in Novo-Ogaryovo when in fact he is in his forest retreat.
Russian academic and autocracy expert Konstantin Gaaze likened Putin’s paranoid concern for security to the behaviour of notorious Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
‘I think that right now [with Putin] we are closest to Saddam Hussein, both in terms of secret residences and how the system operates for protecting information about the whereabouts of the head of state and his family.
‘We will not speculate about body doubles, and we don’t need to….
‘Most of all this resembles how Hussein lived, this is how I would put it.
‘This is no longer like [former Italian premier Silvio] Berlusconi. This is no longer [first Syrian dictator] Assad.
The door handles in each office are also at slightly different heights. They are close matches in Sochi and Valdai, but are lower in Novo-Ogaryovo
Though the light switches are in roughly the same spots in Novo-Ogaryovo and Sochi, the light switch in the Valdai office is more central
‘This is, of course, the closest to Saddam Hussein.’
During the Covid quarantine period, Putin rotated between Valdai and Sochi, according to reports.
Both – like multiple other Putin residences – are believed to be kitted out with bunkers.
After announcing the war in February 2022, he retreated to Valdai, where Alina and their sons have their own house.
Seven months later, after the initiation failure of his invasion, and the announcement of forced mobilisation of Russian men, Putin took in the sea air in Sochi.
He was also here in November 2022 when Russian troops retreated from positions in Kherson and Kharkiv regions.
‘Since then, Putin has increasingly started to ignore his Sochi office, as if it were unlucky,’ said the report, though he came back to it last month.
‘Despite several air-defence positions being established there, it’s still quite close to Ukraine, and the range of new Ukrainian weapons allows them to create a lot of, well, ‘fun’ there,’ said Gaaze.
‘That’s why Valdai is preferable. It’s further away, better concealed, and the terrain is more favourable. It’s a residence in the forest.’
Yet all three offices look the same, allowing Putin to appear at his Moscow region base when he is not.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets Head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, November 11 2025
Firefighters take cover in a basement of a house due to the possible arrival of a drone in the residential area of Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on November 10, 2025
‘From the start of 2025, Putin stopped using his real office in Novo-Ogaryovo,’ said the report.
‘Almost all meetings that he held in the beige office were filmed in the duplicate at Valdai.
‘He came to the Novo-Ogaryovo residence only once, to meet with parliamentary faction leaders and record a video address to participants of the Intervision song contest.’
It is seen as easier for air defence Pantsir-M systems to guard Valdai than other Putin residences, including in the Kremlin itself.
‘It would look very bad to install Pantsirs on the Kremlin towers,’ said Gaaze.
Leaked emails showed the movements of film crews ordered to record Putin’s meetings, showing they were in, for example, Sochi when meetings were labelled as being at Novo-Ogaryovo close to Moscow.
The Sochi office was given away by gaps between decorative wall panels, and the shape of the bottom of a TV stand.
In Sochi he has both sea and mountain retreats. He is also believed to have a similar office at a palace in St Petersburg.
