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Putin Weirdly Insists That Old Schoolmates No Longer Recognize Him

“They often look at me and say, ‘I don’t believe it, is it you or not?’”

Russia’s Vladimir Putin bizarrely confided in residents of the Far East on Wednesday that people with whom he went to school years ago no longer recognize him in person.

Sitting down for a televised town-hall style meeting with residents of Anadyr in the Chukotka region, the Russian leader suggested he has had awkward encounters with former classmates: “I rarely [do it,] but I meet with my classmates, former students. They often look at me and say, ‘I don’t believe it, is it you or not?’”

While at first glance his remarks may have seemed like a reference to rampant rumors on social media that he has multiple body doubles, he went on to suggest that he’d become unrecognizable, apparently, from having too much power.

“You know what it is? A person himself does not always understand how he will behave when he ends up at a certain level of responsibility,” he told the crowd.

At the same meeting, the 71-year-old leader, apparently eager to reassure the public of his stellar health, boasted that he works out for “a minimum of two hours” every day.

His comments come just a few days after a doctor dubbed Putin’s “personal gerontologist”—who claimed to be developing groundbreaking techniques that would allow humans to live longer and reverse the aging process—died at the age of 77, according to St. Petersburg’s deputy governor.

Vladimir Khavinson, the director of the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, had previously suggested Putin could easily stay in power well into his 80s, lauding him as the “perfect” specimen.

In a 2017 interview, Khavinson said Putin had “very high potential” to live longer than usual, adding, “I’m not saying this because I’m afraid of anyone. I’m an independent person.”

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