The Kremlin is set to crack down on those celebrating the bizarre claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin is dead.
For the last two weeks, the General SVR Telegram channel has been filled with claims that Putin died from a heart attack, that his body was frozen in a giant food freezer, a secret memorial service was being held today and that he had been replaced by a body double. And while many thought that Russians had been shielded from the story, because internet usage is heavily monitored in the authoritarian-run country, it now appears as if that couldn't be further from the truth – but anyone looking at or reacting to the news will be punished.
Andriy Yusov, Ukraine's military intelligence spokesman, speaking to Ukrainska Pravda news, said: “The situation is interesting as there are a lot of requests (searches) in the network (on the Internet), including in Russia itself – there is a multiple increase in searches for Putin's death and so on.
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“On the one hand, I would like to say do not read Soviet newspapers at dinner. Well, if there are no others, then don't read any, but this applies to Russians.
“To understand that this is a Russian story, a Russian company and, of course, the special services filmed (Russian police gathered evidence of) . . . those who put emoticons under the posts about Putin's death, and they are quite likely to come soon to the official representatives of the Russian authorities.”
The Kremlin has constantly denied that Putin has been suffering from health issues and is, or could be, dead, and that a body double is being used or even exists – but the source on Telegram continues to claim otherwise. When rumours first surfaced, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that it was all just an “absurd information canard”
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He said: “This belongs to the category of absurd information hoaxes that a whole series of media discuss with enviable tenacity – this evokes nothing but a smile.”
And he later issued a similar second denial days later, but a third denial came yesterday from Peskov, who was attending the opening of a new Russia exhibition at the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy – also known as the VDNKh – which Putin was meant to attend, but his appearance was cancelled earlier this week.
Peskov, who is the only Kremlin official to openly attempt to quash to the mad rumours,, said: “We have only one Putin. Now the ‘experts’ are guessing – there are three or four of them and who we now see every day.”
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