Find Putin: How the “Macho” Became a Paranoid

“Bunker-Dweller” in the Kurils, but “for Some Reason” Not in Donbas

A few days ago, in Novosibirsk, Putin declared that he had “never been afraid of anything.” By now, however, it sounded more like an old man trying to convince himself—a man whom propaganda once portrayed as a macho figure straight out of a pin-up calendar: flying fighter jets, practicing judo on the tatami, aboard a submarine, posing with amphorae, tigers, Siberian cranes, dogs, and horses. Now, instead of the “macho” image, we increasingly see a man who is very careful about choosing exactly where he can claim to be “afraid of nothing.”

The Kurils, which Putin visited for the first time in more than 26 years in power on August 13, were almost perfectly suited to this image: far from the front line, a visit to a fish-processing plant, and minimal real risk. There, he declared that Russians supposedly “have the gene of a winner.” But the truth is that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces finds it very convenient to talk about some kind of “code” in cities far removed from the fighting—Irkutsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, and others. At the same time, he avoids appearing in places where Russia’s claims to “historical greatness” are being tested directly: Bryansk, Kursk, Voronezh, and Belgorod regions.

The Geography of Fear

The geography of Putin’s travels has long looked less like a map of Russia than a map of his own phobias. For example, Putin visited Kursk Region in May 2025, but not because of the fighting: he went to the city of Kurchatov, home to the local nuclear power plant. More tellingly, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s last visit to Kursk was on August 23, 2018.

His last visit to Bryansk was on March 8, 2017; to Belgorod, on July 14 of the same year; and Putin was last in Voronezh exactly 11 years ago, in August 2015. By comparison, since 2000, he has visited China more than 20 times. In other words, even in peacetime, Russia beyond the MKAD—the Moscow Ring Road—was of little interest to him, apart from St. Petersburg and his own residences scattered across the country.

The Sevastopol–Mariupol Raid

As for the “new territories,” Putin last appeared there with anything approaching regularity in the spring of 2023. Those visits included Crimea, nighttime Mariupol, and—according to the Kremlin—the headquarters of the “Dnieper” and “East” force groupings in Kherson and Luhansk regions.

His nighttime trip to occupied Mariupol was particularly revealing. On March 19, 2023, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said: “Putin’s trip lasted on Saturday evening and into the night of Sunday,” meaning that even then an attempt was being made to turn the “bunker-dweller” into something of a daredevil. According to Peskov, “everything happened spontaneously: a visit to Sevastopol, then Rostov-on-Don, and then Mariupol.”

In reality, it looked like a visit by a man seeking the imagery of victory without being willing to pay for it with even the slightest risk. Triumphant leaders do not enter a “liberated” city in the manner of a nighttime taxi ride. That is something a cab driver might do—although, given that Mariupol had been devastated thanks to him, there was a certain symbolism to it after all.

The Kremlin’s “cab driver” was shown the remnants of what had once been a major industrial city, dressed up as a Potemkin village. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin showed him the Philharmonic Hall, which, according to Khusnullin, had been “restored in three months.” “Convenient, beautiful,” Putin agreed.

In reality, this is known as “substitution.” One of the most tragic and emotionally charged episodes of the defense of Mariupol was the Russian destruction of the Drama Theatre, where hundreds of civilians were sheltering. The exact number of people killed there has still not been established.

The Philharmonic Hall shown to Putin, by contrast, suffered almost no damage. As early as the summer of 2022, the occupation administration of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” planned to hold a tribunal there for the “Azov” fighters. The Russian Defense Ministry’s Zvezda TV channel explained this quite bluntly: “The Philharmonic Hall building on Metalurhiv Avenue was chosen to hold the tribunal because it suffered the least damage during the fighting. The residential buildings around it were destroyed, while this building survived.”

Disinfection and UV Irradiation

It is worth recalling the story behind the nickname “the bunker-dweller.” It stuck to Putin during the COVID-19 pandemic because of his unprecedented self-isolation: extremely long tables, two-week quarantines, disinfection tunnels, and UV irradiation for visitors entering his offices. Even then, all of this suggested that it was not simply a matter of medical precautions, but a new model of Putin’s personal behavior.

After February 2022, the nickname acquired an additional—and eventually primary—meaning, because of the parallel with Hitler, who spent his final days in a bunker, as well as the heightened paranoia that manifested itself in the alleged use of body doubles.

Journalistic investigations uncovered a system of three virtually identical offices used by Putin at his residences in Novo-Ogaryovo, Sochi, and Valdai. And although analysis of hundreds of video recordings made it possible to identify even subtle differences between them—door handles, wall panels, wood textures, and so on—the Kremlin continued to insist that Putin was in the Kremlin.

According to researchers, between January and September 2025, only one of Putin’s 30 public appearances from Moscow took place somewhere other than his Valdai residence in Novgorod Region. The finale of the game called “find the one Putin in several identical offices” then led to a rather grim conclusion: a paranoid fear for his own safety.

Ordinary “Fishermen” and “Parishioners”

Likewise, Putin’s supposedly “spontaneous meetings with ordinary Russians” have turned into another game: “spot the difference.” In reality, however, this game began long before the pandemic. Thanks to media investigations and facial-recognition software, it emerged that the role of “the people” is played by Federal Protective Service officers, local officials, or vetted extras.

There are at least three of the most notorious cases.

The first involved a “saleswoman” from whom Putin “happened” to buy ice cream during a visit to the MAKS air show in 2017. Two years later, at the same venue, he again approached the same “saleswoman”—this time accompanied by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Immediately after the visit, she disappeared along with her stall. She was later spotted among the “workers” at a defense plant.

The second case involved the “fishermen” and “parishioners.” In September 2016, Putin “unexpectedly” encountered some fishermen on Lake Ilmen while riding in a boat. Then, in January 2017, the same “fishermen,” now dressed for the occasion, were standing beside him at a Christmas service at the Yuriev Monastery in Novgorod. The supposedly ordinary “fishermen” and “parishioners” turned out to be agribusinessman Alexei Lyashenko and Larisa Sergukhina, deputy director of an agricultural holding company and, in addition, a local United Russia lawmaker.

The third case involved the “military personnel” who appeared behind Putin during his New Year’s address on December 31, 2022. Investigators found that the “military doctor Anna Sidorenko” visible behind Putin bore a striking resemblance to the same Sergukhina who had previously appeared as the “fisherwoman” and “parishioner.”

And during that same nighttime visit to occupied Mariupol, where Putin supposedly spoke with “grateful residents” of the Nevsky neighborhood, local residents quickly recognized among the “happy new homeowners” several collaborators, including a woman surnamed Volosatova—a longtime local supporter of the “Russian world”—as well as other planted figures, according to Telegram channels.

So when the role of “the people” on camera is played year after year by the same “saleswomen,” “fishermen,” and other “Volosatovas,” it becomes clear that Putin’s greatest fear is not so much Ukraine, the West, or the opposition—even opposition such as Yabloko—as it is anything beyond his control: a person or a phenomenon.

That is how the Russian fairy tale of the former Kremlin “macho” came to an end. He is now simply a paranoid man who walks into one of his own bunker-like offices, where vetted extras await him, and, on camera, tries to convince them—although in reality, first and foremost, himself—that he is “not afraid of anything.”

Max Meltzer