Kiev on Wednesday disputed the announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently visited war zones in Ukraine again, claiming that he did not go himself, but an entourage.

“This was not the real Putin,” National Security Council Secretary Oleksii Danilov told Ukrainian television, without providing any proof. “To talk to the real Putin, you have to be in isolation for 10 to 14 days,” he continued.

According to a Kremlin press release released yesterday Tuesday, the Russian president recently traveled to the war zone in Ukrainemet with Russian servicemen fighting on the front lines in the Kherson and Lugansk regions and consulted with senior officers.

This is the second visit announced by Mr. Putin to Ukrainian territory after he ordered the Russian military to invade the neighboring country on February 24, 2022. The exact date of the Russian president’s visit was not specified. The Kremlin released a short video showing Vladimir Putin exiting a helicopter and shaking hands with uniformed soldiers.

According to Mr. Danilov, the person who went to Kherson was a “spy” of Mr. Putin: “there are quite a few, as we know,” he added.

The Ukrainian official also claimed that the president of Russia is “scared” and therefore it is impossible that he decided to visit soldiers on the front line. According to Mr. Danilov, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a “diametrically opposite” case, as he has repeatedly visited the fronts, while Vladimir Putin, according to him, is a “grandfather hiding in the basement”, who will soon “be afraid of himself.”