Vladimir Putin was filmed in Moscow this week greeting his former schoolteacher, 92‑year‑old Vera Gurevich, only for her to peer at his face and ask, 'Is that you?,' a moment that forced the Russian president to address long‑running rumours that he uses a body double.
The carefully staged meeting at Gurevich's hotel in the capital before a dinner at the Kremlin was presented by state media as proof that Putin remains firmly in command and very much alive.
