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Russian President Vladimir Putin was first elected to his post in 1999. He has ruled Russia ever since – with a formal break between 2008 and 2012. In recent years he has become increasingly lonely. Shortly before the invasion of Ukraine, he met his colleagues alone at an extremely long table.

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Since the Russian invasion, Putin has dug in even more – especially because there is an international criminal warrant against him. Before his political career, Putin was stationed as an officer with the Russian secret service in Germany. The man who is now seen as a megalomaniac tyrant in large parts of the West, devoted his life to his state.

Since he took office, photos and appearances of Putin have been staged. What is usually seen is a president who radiates strength. On the border of toxic masculinity – or even beyond it. Putin half-naked on a horse, Putin fishing with a big fish, Putin with huge dogs.

Putin surprises with his unkempt appearance

But now a private video has emerged that shows a completely different side to the Russian ruler. In the video, which was leaked to the Finnish TV channel YLE, four men can be seen playing table tennis. A double. One of them: forty-year-old Vladimir Putin in sweatpants and an undershirt – and with a bad haircut.

Luke Harding, former Moscow correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, said of this appearance:

At the time, Putin was still a KGB officer and advisor to the then mayor of Saint Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. In the recordings he was apparently Putin’s doubles partner in the ping-pong game. The opponents: Sobchak’s bodyguards. A victory, as the videos show, was certain for the Sobchak-Putin team.

The home video was probably recorded in a Thomesto company villa in southern Finland. The Thomesto timber company had close business ties with Russia. And so with Sobchak – and therefore with Putin. As advisor to the mayor, he was responsible, among other things, for the city’s close relations with foreign countries.

In addition to Putin’s rather nonchalant appearance, the Kremlin expert is surprised by the humanity that the current ruler radiates in the video. «The most striking thing is that he laughs. He looks human and not like the corpse-slinger he has become», YLE quotes Harding.

Putin is generally not seen as private and deranged. The rare footage probably only exists in this form because Putin at the time had no control over how he was portrayed – and because he probably thought he could just indulge in private. Kremlin expert Harding calls the video material “original, fascinating and fascinating”.

Precisely because Putin pays so much attention to his own actions and how others perceive him, the Finnish broadcaster YLE has decided to shield the source of the video. Because: Revelations about Putin’s private life can have unforeseen consequences. However, the authenticity of the video has been checked. The information cannot be verified.