A video of Russian President Vladimir Putin ditching his presidential car and security detail to walk alone on a street after attending the funeral of his judo coach, is being widely circulated on social media platforms in the backdrop of recent Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Putin's decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has drawn widespread condemnation and harsh economic sanctions from the West and European countries, and propelled oil and gas prices globally. Russian athletes have been boycotted from several global sporting competitions. The invasion has also triggered an onslaught of misinformation and disinformation online. The viral video is being shared in this context.
One of the captions with the video reads, "Putin walking alone in the street without his security, only a cameraman following him."
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Fact Check
BOOM did a keyword search using words "putin walking alone" on Google and found a video report uploaded on a Russian YouTube channel rianews on August 9, 2013.
The video shows a similar scene from timestamp 0:29 seconds onward.
The caption with the video on YouTube states, "Russian President Vladimir Putin attended a service Friday in memory of his former judo coach, a man he has credited as being the "mentor" of his youth." The video can be seen below.
The "About" section of the YouTube channel states, "RIA Novosti is Russia's leading news agency in terms of multimedia technologies, website audience reach and quoting by the Russian media."
The video report also carried a Sputnik news report published on August 9, 2013.
"Putin laid flowers at Rakhlin's grave in St. Petersburg and spent some time standing next to his former coach's coffin with his head bowed. He spoke with Rakhlin's widow and former sparring partners, and went for a short solitary walk, before he was driven away", reported the article.
It further added, "Anatoly Rakhlin, who once said he was Putin's "second father," died Wednesday at the age of 75, reportedly after a long illness."
We also found several pictures of the incident featuring Vladimir Putin on Getty Images' website doing the same keyword search.
Additionally, a similar keyword search in Russian on YouTube led us to the same video uploaded on state-backed RT YouTube channel uploaded on August 9, 2013.
The description of the video in Russian mentions similar information as reported above in the story.
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