From Radio Free Europe:
"Where's Putin? How The Kremlin Hides His Location With Three Nearly Identical Offices
In a report aired on October 11, 2020, a Russian state TV journalist breathlessly tells viewers what's in store: excerpts from his interview with President Vladimir Putin and news about the test of a hypersonic missile Moscow has been boasting about, among other things.
"After the interview, more work," the reporter says, repeating the Kremlin narrative that Putin labors nonstop to keep the country safe and strong. A tag in a corner of the screen says "Novo-Ogaryovo" -- the main presidential residence in the Moscow suburbs -- and the footage shows Putin heading for his office door and reaching for the handle.
And that's the giveaway: The placement of the door handle and a few other details reveal the footage was not filmed at Novo-Ogaryovo at all, an RFE/RL investigation has determined.
In fact, it was shot more than 1,500 kilometers to the south in an almost identical office at Bocharov Ruchei, a state residence in Sochi, on the Black Sea coast.
Systema, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit, found there are not just one but two copies of Putin's office at Novo-Ogaryovo -- one in Sochi and the other at Valdai, roughly halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg -- and that the Kremlin has been dishonest about the president's location hundreds of times in recent years.
In most cases established by Systema, meetings that ostensibly took place at Novo-Ogaryovo were actually filmed in Sochi or at Valdai, a lakeside town whose forested location Putin has favored since he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has led to Ukrainian drone attacks on military and industrial targets in Russia.
The investigation points to a highly secretive Kremlin that has misled the public about Putin's location on a regular basis for several years at least. It also adds to questions about the timing of the meetings and talks Putin's administration publicizes.
In an investigative report published in August, Systema revealed that at least five Kremlin meetings that ostensibly took place in April or May were actually filmed months earlier. Putin has continued that ruse this autumn: Since August, the Kremlin has released at least seven old videos of the president's meetings, passing them off as new, Systema found.
Among other methods, Systema made its findings about the three nearly identical offices by closely watching some 700 videos published by Putin's administration or shown on state TV and examining images posted on the Kremlin website.
Journalists also combed thorough reams of material including social media posts and leaked travel records describing plans and actual trips by people on the edges of Putin's entourage, such as security personnel and the state TV journalists who cover him.
The October 2020 report is a simple but stunning example.
In the Novo-Ogaryovo office, the handle on the door near Putin's desk is set slightly lower than a seam that separates wall panels on either side -- a fact that is clear from footage and photos of the room, including images from the company that laid the parquet floor.
But while the handle Putin reaches for as he leaves the office looks the same, it is set slightly higher than the wall seam -- a difference of a few centimeters, but nonetheless unmistakable. And what it means is that the interview was filmed in Sochi, not outside Moscow.
Among other details that reveal discrepancies between the location announced by the Kremlin and the actual location of numerous meetings purportedly held at Novo-Ogaryovo: the patterns on Putin's neckties, the shape of a TV stand, the hue of a tabletop, and the grain of a wooden document tray on the desk.
Systema corroborated findings about Putin's location in video footage by examining travel documents. For example, an August 2020 TV interview that the Kremlin said took place at Novo-Ogaryovo appeared to have actually been filmed in Sochi, judging by details including the door handle.
Sure enough, an e-ticket purchased by a travel agency with ties to the Kremlin and obtained by Systema indicated that the interviewer, Sergei Brilyov, flew from Sochi to Moscow on August 27, the day the interview aired on state television...
Separately, footage filmed in September 2020 was purportedly shot at Novo-Ogaryovo. But in an e-mail seen by Systema, a state TV producer asked a colleague to organize a trip to Sochi for prominent journalist Pavel Zarubin and several other TV crew members at that time.
Zarubin, a co-creator of a weekly news show on state-run Rossia-1 that focuses on Putin, has frequently traveled to Sochi and brought back footage that the Kremlin then represented as having been filmed at Novo-Ogaryovo, Systema found.
A leaked travel document and a short portion of one of Zarubin's shows revealed that a presidential security staffer involved in communications stayed a night in Sochi at a time when footage of Putin purportedly shot at Novo-Ogaryovo, but actually shot at Bocharov Ruchei, was filmed in October 2021.
In addition to the door handle, there are other differences between the office at Novo-Ogaryovo and the one at Bocharov Ruchei. The placement of a seam on the wall behind Putin's back is one; the legs of the TV stand are another..."
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