An investigation reveals that the Kremlin has repeatedly misled the public about the whereabouts of President Vladimir Putin, who uses three almost-identical offices in different parts of the country.
Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, identified inconsistencies in footage and travel data showing that many meetings claimed to have taken place outside Moscow were actually filmed in Sochi or Valdai.
Putin has increasingly favored the secluded Valdai residence during the ongoing war in Ukraine and amid rising drone attacks on Russian sites.
In a broadcast report on October 11, 2020, a state TV journalist enthusiastically tells viewers what’s next: excerpts from an interview with President Vladimir Putin and, among other things, news about testing a hypersonic missile that Moscow boasted about. “After the interview, more work,” the journalist says, repeating the Kremlin narrative that Putin works non-stop to keep the country safe and strong.
A caption in the corner of the screen reads “Novo-Ogariovo” — the main presidential residence on Moscow’s outskirts — and the video shows Putin walking toward his office door and extending his hand to open it.
And there lies the truth: the position of the door handle and several other small details show the footage was not filmed in Novo-Ogariovo, according to RFE/RL’s Systema investigation.
In fact, it was filmed more than 1,500 kilometers to the south, in an almost identical office at Bocharov Ruchey, a state residence in Sochi on the Black Sea coast.
Systema found that Novo-Ogariovo is not the only place with a copy of Putin’s office — there are two replicas, one in Sochi and one in Valdai (roughly between Moscow and St. Petersburg) — and that the Kremlin has misled the public about the president’s location hundreds of times in recent years.
In most cases documented by Systema, meetings presented as being in Novo-Ogariovo were actually filmed in Sochi or Valdai — a lakeside town surrounded by dense woods that Putin has favored since the start of the war in Ukraine, which has also prompted drone strikes on Russian military and industrial sites.
This investigation portrays a highly secretive Kremlin that has regularly deceived the public about Putin’s location in recent years. It also raises questions about the timing of meetings and talks the Kremlin publishes.
In an investigative report published in August, Systema revealed that at least five Kremlin meetings claimed to have taken place in April or May were in fact filmed months earlier. Putin has continued this practice into this autumn: since August, the Kremlin has posted at least seven old videos presented as new, Systema says.
Behind door number one…
Systema reached its conclusion about three nearly identical offices by analyzing around 700 videos released by Putin’s administration or broadcast on state television, and by reviewing images posted on the Kremlin’s website.
Journalists also examined a range of materials, including social-media posts and travel data obtained that described actual travel plans of people close to Putin — such as security personnel and state TV journalists who cover him.
The October 2020 report is a simple but striking example.
In the Novo-Ogariovo office, the door handle near Putin’s desk is positioned slightly below a dividing line that separates wall panels on both sides. That detail is clearly visible in photos and footage of the room, including images from the company that laid the parquet flooring there.
But in the footage where Putin reaches for the handle, it is slightly higher than the panel line — a difference of only a few centimeters but undeniable. That shows the interview was filmed in Sochi, not outside Moscow.
Other details that reveal mismatches between the declared location and the actual places of many meetings said to have been in Novo-Ogariovo include: patterns on Putin’s ties, the shape of the television stand, the table’s color and the frame of the document tray on the desk.
Systema confirmed these findings by analyzing Putin’s travel documents. For example, a televised interview in August 2020 that the Kremlin claimed was held in Novo-Ogariovo appears to have been filmed in Sochi, judging by details including the door handle.
Indeed, an e-ticket purchased by a travel agency linked to the Kremlin and obtained by Systema showed that journalist Sergei Brilyov flew from Sochi to Moscow on August 27, the day the interview aired on state TV.
These and other internal state-TV documents were provided to Systema via emails leaked from VGTRK, made available by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Travel that betrays the truth
Footage shot in September 2020 was supposed to be from Novo-Ogariovo. But in an email seen by Systema, a TV producer requested organizing a trip to Sochi for the well-known journalist Pavel Zarubin and some team members.
Zarubin, co-host of a weekly state TV program on Rossia-1 focused on Putin, has traveled frequently to Sochi and has brought back footage that the Kremlin later presented as if filmed in Novo-Ogariovo, Systema found.
A travel document and a brief clip of one Zarubin program showed that a member of presidential security stayed overnight in Sochi at the same time Putin footage — claimed to be from Novo-Ogariovo but actually shot at Bocharov Ruchey — was recorded in October 2021.
Besides the door handle, there are other differences between the Novo-Ogariovo office and the Bocharov Ruchey one: the position of the panel line on the wall behind Putin and the shape of the television stand’s legs.
Bocharov Ruchey has been used by Soviet leaders since Nikita Khrushchev and his successor Leonid Brezhnev. The old building (from the 1950s) was demolished and replaced with a new structure ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Footage filmed after the opening ceremony shows a reception with Russian cultural figures, including Putin and Alina Kabaeva, the 2004 rhythmic gymnastics Olympic champion who is widely reported to be his partner and the mother of at least two of his children.
Over the years, Putin has hosted many leaders and Russian officials at Bocharov Ruchey. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for much of 2020–2021, about one-third of meetings claimed to be in Novo-Ogariovo were actually held in Sochi, according to Systema’s reviewed evidence.
He has also spent significant time in Valdai, where he holds meetings in an office that looks very similar to the one near Moscow and the Sochi one.
Isolation and security
In recent years, Putin has increasingly preferred Valdai. He has almost entirely stopped using Bocharov Ruchey since February 2023, a year after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Footage and other materials reviewed by Systema suggest that almost all meetings labeled as from Novo-Ogariovo in 2025 were actually held in Valdai.
Valdai also has a state residence, and in 2016 a pavilion for meetings and conferences was built in a wooded area — on the site of a former tennis court — by the same company that renovated Novo-Ogariovo and Bocharov Ruchey.
As with Bocharov Ruchey, the dividing line on the wall behind Putin’s chair is one of the signs that the room is not Novo-Ogariovo. Another detail distinguishing Valdai from the other two offices is a thermostat located in the center of a wall panel, while the document tray on Putin’s desk has a different wood pattern than in the other offices.
By combining visual details and travel data, Systema determined that one of many meetings held in Valdai was the government meeting three days after the Kemerovo shopping-center fire in Siberia in March 2018 — an inferno that killed at least 60 people, most of them children — a week after Putin’s reelection to a fourth term. The Kremlin had claimed the meeting took place in Novo-Ogariovo.
As Russia massed troops along the Ukrainian border before the February 24, 2022 invasion, Putin spoke with US President Joe Biden by video call from Sochi on December 7, 2021. Biden warned him against an attack while Putin criticized Kyiv and NATO.
After that, Putin traveled to Valdai and held several meetings there while the Kremlin reported he was in Novo-Ogariovo.
From February 24 to April 12, as Russian forces initially advanced then pulled back from Kyiv’s outskirts, Putin held at least 12 office meetings from Valdai, Systema says.
An analysis of footage and other evidence also shows that of 30 public appearances by Putin in his office from January through the end of September this year, only one was not filmed in Valdai — where, over time, the thermostat has been moved into the same position as in the Sochi and Novo-Ogariovo offices.
Sociologist Konstantin Gaaze, who studies Russian authoritarianism, says Putin’s preference for Valdai is clear in the context of war with Ukraine and drone attacks on Russian targets.
“It’s a matter of security, of course,” he says.
Bocharov Ruchey sits in an exposed, visible area of Sochi, and heavy security measures would draw attention to an elite Moscow suburb where Novo-Ogariovo is located. Valdai is much more isolated, and RFE/RL reported in August that 12 air-defense installations — mostly Pantsir-S1 missile systems — had been deployed in the surrounding area.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov read out questions that Systema sent before the article’s publication but did not answer them. VGTRK’s press office also did not comment.
In 2020, after investigative outlet Proekt first reported that Putin had two nearly identical offices — in Novo-Ogariovo and Bocharov Ruchey — Peskov called the report “inaccurate” and said there were “no identical offices.”
The Putin administration has never publicly addressed the evidence that it has misled the Russian public about the locations of hundreds of the president’s meetings.
