In a picture from 2016, the "chameleon woman" is part of the crew.

The following year, she appears in a monastery.

On New Year's Eve 2022, a blonde uniformed soldier stands right behind the president.

At least two different people

The photos of blonde women in Putin's vicinity have raised suspicions on social media that the president is using the same actors in his official photos.

But is it even the same woman?

Anders Hast is a professor at Uppsala University who researches face recognition.

When the photos began to circulate in the media, out of pure curiosity, he looked for 36 different group photos where the "chameleon-woman" appeared in 15 of them.

He ran the images partly in the system he himself researches in, partly in a commercial tool.

- I thought this was a good test case based on the algorithms I work with.

I thought we would find the same person and was surprised that this woman in military uniform is not the same woman who appears in at least three other contexts, says Anders Hast.

According to AI technology, the "chameleon woman" is therefore at least two different people.

The military woman, who appeared in connection with New Year's Eve, is not the same person who was previously seen at Putin's side, says Anders Hast.

- I wouldn't say it's 100 percent safe, but it's close.

They end up in different clusters even if the clusters are neighbors, he says.

Other people appear

However, he found several other people who appear in several different photos together with President Putin.

Anders Hast says that he does not want to make any political point with his discovery, but was himself extremely surprised by the result.

- Then you can think about why all these other people appear all the time with Putin, but I have no idea.