Kremlin releases video of Putin out and about in Moscow after Western bunker claims
By Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW, May 12 (Reuters) – The Kremlin released a video of Vladimir Putin driving in Moscow and meeting a former teacher in the lobby of a hotel after Western media outlets cited a European intelligence report that said the Russian President had hidden for weeks in bunkers.
Reports emerged ahead of Putin’s annual appearance on Red Square on May 9 to celebrate victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, in which the Kremlin questioned his origins, suggesting that security around Putin had been sharply tightened and that he had been directing the war in Ukraine from underground bunkers for weeks due to fears of an assassination or coup attempt.
Russian officials have dismissed such scenarios as nonsense, and Putin’s video, released late Monday, appeared to be a visual refutation of accusations and allegations long leveled at him by some critics that he is increasingly out of touch with his own people.
In the photo, Putin, looking relaxed, can be seen approaching a hotel in central Moscow behind the wheel of a Russian-made SUV with his security guard. She is then seen heading to the lobby with a large bouquet of flowers to meet one of her old school teachers.
Wearing casual jeans and a light jacket, Putin, 73, hugs his former teacher Vera Gurevich, who kisses him repeatedly on the cheeks and whispers something into his ear.
Putin, who started school in what was then Leningrad in 1960, is later seen making small talk about the weather with a random passerby entering the hotel lobby with his family, before Putin helps his former teacher into his vehicle and drives him to the Kremlin for dinner.
In the statement made by the Kremlin, it was stated that Putin invited Gurevich to the annual Red Square parade and then to spend a few days in Moscow and enjoy a cultural program.
Putin, who has been in power as both president and prime minister since 1999 and whose ratings have fallen in recent months but remain high, according to state pollsters, has two years left in his current term, which will end in 2030.
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, is set to be re-elected in September, at a time when this year’s growth forecasts have been sharply reduced amid signs that people are unhappy with growing restrictions on the internet.
Putin said Saturday he thought the war in Ukraine was over, and his remarks came just hours after Moscow pledged victory in Ukraine at the most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Andrew Osborn, Editing by Hugh Lawson)
