Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting harder to find.
In November, Systema, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit, revealed that the Kremlin was obscuring Putin's location and keeping much of his travel under wraps by using three nearly identical offices in different parts of Russia for meetings.
Since then, and for more than 160 days stretching back to October, the Kremlin posted no footage or photos from any of those three offices: one just outside Moscow, one in Sochi on the Black Sea, and one in a wooded compound at Valdai, northwest of the capital.
On March 18, the Kremlin released footage showing Putin holding a government meeting by video link from what appeared to be one of them, marking 12 years since Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
SEE ALSO: Where's Putin? How The Kremlin Hides His Location With Three Nearly Identical OfficesIt was unclear which location Putin used for the meeting -- the original office, at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence in a leafy Moscow suburb, or one of its replicas. Systema was unable to determine the location based on available visual markers.
President or prime minister since 1999, Putin has always sought to keep his private life secret. The Systema investigation showed that for a decade or more, the Kremlin has also taken elaborate steps to hide his location in his capacity as head of state.
For years, the office at Novo-Ogaryovo functioned as a controlled visual anchor for the Kremlin's messaging as the setting for meetings, video calls, and Security Council sessions presented as taking place in the Moscow region.
Satellite photos show the buildings housing the nearly identical offices at Novo-Ogaryovo, Sochi, and Valdai.
In reality, he was often far away. In its investigation in 2025, Systema found that in recent years a large number of occasions that ostensibly took place at Novo-Ogaryovo were actually filmed at the Valdai compound or the Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi, about 1,500 kilometers south of Moscow.
Systema made its findings by scrutinizing hundreds of hours of footage, countless photos, and reams of travel records, among other evidence. Some of the clearest indications that Putin was using three nearly identical offices were subtle discrepancies: the placement of a door handle, the grain of a wooden tray, the pattern on his necktie.
Until March 18, all three offices had disappeared entirely from official Kremlin footage since October 7, 2025, a review by Systema found. On that date, his 73rd birthday, Putin held a Security Council meeting by video link.
Although the Kremlin said Putin was at Novo-Ogaryovo, visual details suggest it was filmed in the Sochi replica.
The Kremlin has never acknowledged the existence of the replica rooms and has not responded to requests for comment on the matter from Systema.
The long hiatus does not mean Putin has vanished from the public eye. His administration has continued to publish footage of meetings -- some in the Kremlin, where he also has offices -- as well as trips and other events.
Some of that footage has clearly been recorded and released the same day. But Systema has detected a growing reliance on pre-recorded material, or "canned" footage, used to maintain the appearance of continuity.
SEE ALSO: Exclusive: Kremlin Office Plants Prove Putin's Absence As Iran War Heats UpIn February, for example, Putin did not appear on camera for more than 10 days while the Kremlin published older videos it presented as being current. Subtle visual cues -- including changes in a plant in the Kremlin office -- helped identify the mismatch.
Systema found evidence that in 2025 alone, pre-recorded footage was used at least 18 times.
Close-ups show a plant in Putin's Kremlin office in images published by the Kremlin on these dates, in numerical order: September 2025 to February 2026; February 25, 2026; March 2, 2026; March 3, 2026.
The use of replica offices expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued after Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, enabling him to remain in more secure locations while projecting normality.
The lack of footage since October leaves it unclear how much time Putin has been spending at any of the three residences, and suggests he may be trying to further obscure his location at any given time.
Systema's investigation in 2025 found that Putin has favored Valdai during the all-out war on Ukraine, now in its fifth year.
The Valdai residence is more secluded than Novo-Ogaryovo and Bocharov Ruchei, and RFE/RL's Russian Service reported in August that 12 air-defense installations had been set up in the area around it, most of them Pantsir-S1 missile systems.
In December, Russia claimed Ukraine used dozens of drones in an attempt to attack the Valdai residence. Ukraine denied it, and US President Donald Trump at first suggested he believed the residence was targeted but later, citing assessments by US officials, said he did not.
Another piece of the backdrop to the Kremlin's secrecy about Putin's location is the killing or capture of authoritarian leaders from Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Qaddafi of Libya to, in the past three months, Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.