BirSaNN Posted January 7, 2023 Share Posted January 7, 2023 Social media is awash with claims, repeated on news websites, that Russian President Vladimir Putin surrounded himself with actors for his New Year's address and at previous events. But what's the evidence? We used facial recognition software to check some of these allegations. The Russian president has a track record of posing at events where some of the attendees are not what they seem. A BBC Russian investigation in 2020 found that some events presented as impromptu conversations with everyday people were actually filled with friendly local officials. Social media posts, and news websites such as the Sun and the Daily Mail, have suggested a blonde woman has been playing different characters at several previous events with Mr Putin, including a fishing trip in 2016 and a church service in 2017. Others, including a Ukrainian news report, say she may be part of Russia's Federal Guards Service (FSO) - a security force that protects top leaders. We've used facial recognition software to compare the face of the woman in the New Year picture with those in 2016 and 2017, producing low match results of 29% and 28% respectively. "Usually, a similarity score of 75% or higher should be considered when looking for an identity match," says Professor Hassan Ugail, Director of the Centre for Visual Computing at the University of Bradford. Next, we compared the images from the events held in 2016 and 2017, which generated a 99.1% score, strongly indicating that these two are of the same person. This woman has been identified in Russian media as Larisa Sergukhina. Both events at which she appeared took place in the Novgorod region where she is a member of the regional parliament for the United Russia Party, which backs Mr Putin. When we compared her 2016 image from the boat with her official party portrait online we got a 99.8% match. Ms Sergukhina is also listed as the founder of a company that trades fish in Novgorod. The woman at the New Year address has been named in Russian media as Anna Sergeevna Sidorenko, a captain and military doctor. Comparing her face at the event with an image taken from a video interview posted online by the Russian Isvestia newspaper gave a 99.5% match. Her name also appears on a members list of a Russian military regiment published by the Ukrainian intelligence services. The fishermen We then looked into claims about a group of men in fishing gear, photographed with Mr Putin on a boat in 2016. The same men, it was alleged, were also photographed at the 2017 church service. link: https://www.bbc.com/news/64189366 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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