How the Autocrat Hides: Systema’s Investigation Reveals Where Putin Actually Works

The Russian president Putin has long turned his own geography into a security system. After the full-scale war against Ukraine, he almost stopped living “in one place” — now his working map consists of three points: Novo-Ogaryovo, Sochi, and the heavily fortified Valdai.
Investigators from Systema studied over 700 videos, travel documents, and Kremlin leaks — and found that attempts to conceal Putin’s movements are made not only through propaganda but also with almost theatrical decorations.

Anatomy of substitution: doors, walls, and ventilation reveal the truth

What seems like ordinary offices are actually a set of almost identical rooms in different cities.
Researchers found differences where they weren’t expected: the height of door handles, distances between walls, curves of ventilation ducts, shades of light on panels.

In one propaganda story, a reporter enters a “press conference” hall. In reality — the door is from one city, the hall from another.
Amusingly, it was the different height of handles that confirmed that the two “identical” rooms were not copies, but different residences.

Why all this has become important right now

Autocracy expert Konstantin Gaaze notes: the issue is not about aesthetics.
Putin moves between points where it is easier to hide air defense equipment, avoid drones, and keep a distance from the reality of a big city. Placing anti-aircraft systems in the center of Moscow is too “loud” even by Kremlin standards.

After the start of the war, the president increasingly locks himself in the Valdai residence — it is called “the safest Russian refuge.”

Valdai as a fortress: security, air defense, and family circle

According to investigations, it is to Valdai that Putin took his partner Alina Kabaeva and two children.
Around the lake in the summer of 2024, 12 “Pantsir-S1” air defense systems were found — disproportionately many for a secluded forest. For comparison, in the multi-million Moscow — only about 60.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones were recorded near the Kremlin’s working area, and in the area of the “palace on the Black Sea” — a fire, presumably caused by another drone.
It was after these episodes, sources claim, that Putin increased movements and ordered the dismantling of part of the infrastructure of the “Bocharov Ruchey” residence.

When security becomes the architecture of power

Putin has long tried to turn his presence into a “signal,” but not into coordinates. The use of clone rooms, movement between points, the absence of public routes — this is an attempt to maintain control in a war where real danger has for the first time approached him within a few kilometers.

For researchers, this geography has already become a map of fear, and for the Kremlin — a forced part of the political ritual.

The war that Russia unleashed against Ukraine changes everything: from Europe’s energy to how a person who considers himself untouchable lives and hides.

NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency