Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, is convinced that it was not Russian President Vladimir Putin who visited the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson and Luhansk oblasts but one of his doubles.

"Well, first of all, Putin was not there. This is a well-known fact. In order to communicate with the real Putin, you must spend at least 10–14 days in quarantine. There was no Putin there. There was an ordinary double, of which he has more than one; this is also a well-known fact."

Danilov stated that Putin is "a frightened person", and it is simply impossible to think that he could come in such a way.

The NSDC Secretary recalled how foreign guests are seated at a table at a great distance from the Russian dictator, and Putin's trips, he said, are "a whole procedure", where the preparatory process starts "in two to three weeks" and "there are no impromptu events there for a long time".

"This is the exact opposite of our president, who can visit the contact line at any time and be directly with our military personnel. This is our difference. The difference from Putin's bunker old man, who will soon be afraid of himself," Danilov summed up.

On 18 April, Russian media reported that Russia’ s Vladimir Putin had allegedly visited the headquarters of the Dnepr group of forces in Kherson Oblast  and the Vostok [East] group in Luhansk Oblast.

The Kremlin decided to hide the fact that Putin had been in the Kherson Oblast before Easter, but Russian media discovered that the Russian dictator had been in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine  before 16 April and was not far from the border with Crimea .

On 19 April, Russian President Vladimir  Putin said that he had visited the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson  and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine to meet with the military and not to distract them from their deployment site for a long time.