“In general, we analyzed Putin’s New Year’s video messages quite deeply in 2023–2025 and noticed an interesting trend. […] The official Kremlin actively uses AI technologies to create annual appeals,” the report says.
InformNapalm drew attention to the same background behind Putin in his New Year’s addresses, “only the ties of the AI avatars change.”
Before this, the intelligence community stated that first Russians in some regions of the Russian Federation (where the New Year was celebrated earlier) were shown a video of Putin wearing a black tie, and later a version of Putin with a red tie appeared, which became the main and last one.
Some Russian providers explained the appearance of the black tie video as “technical problems,” but subscribers of closed Russian military chats and Z-publics also saw the same thing, InformNapalm noted.
“We can already say that Putin not only can have doubles, he already has AI avatars for standard congratulations and events, so as not to distract the elderly terrorist No. 1 while filming,” the authors of the post report.
The Kremlin website posted a photo of Putin wearing a red tie, but the image could have been processed using AI.
Context
The state of health of 73-year-old Putin, who has been in power in the Russian Federation since 2000, has repeatedly become a topic of discussion in the media. In September 2020, Putin’s classmate, former USSR KGB intelligence officer Yuri Shvets, said that the head of the Kremlin was sick and “has problems that require chemotherapy.”
In April 2022, the Russian publication Proekt published an investigation into Putin’s health. It found out that the Russian President’s medical team includes an oncologist surgeon.
On May 12, New Lines Magazine, citing an unnamed Russian businessman close to the Kremlin, reported that Putin had blood cancer. On May 19, American director Oliver Stone announced that the Russian President had overcome cancer. On June 2, Newsweek reported that Putin underwent treatment for late-stage cancer in April. In December, the Express wrote that Putin had been diagnosed with cancer and schizoaffective disorder; according to The Sun, he also had early-stage Parkinson's disease, which was already progressing.
In February 2025, NEXTA Live noticed “strange scar” on Putin's forehead.
On November 9, the same public drew attention to Putin’s hands in the video, noting that they looked “extremely painful.”
That same month, Putin said that he had undergone diagnostics and learned that “everything is fine” with him.
