A photo through a Publish is widely shared on social media claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin hung a photo of Dr BR Ambedkar in his office. Let’s check the facts of the claim made in the mail.

Claim: Photo of the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the portrait of Dr BR Ambedkar.

Made: Photo is morphed from an image where the president usually chairs sessions of Russia’s security council. In several other similar images, the portrait seen is the State Seal of the Russian Federation. There is no evidence to conclude that a portrait of Dr BR Ambedkar hangs in Putin’s office, which is the meeting place of the Security Council in the Senate building of the Moscow Kremlin. Therefore, the claim made by post is FALSE.

When reverse image search is performed on the photo, a similar image was found in a item on the official website of the President of Russia. The article of November 27, 2001, is entitled, “Vladimir Poutine chaired a session of the Security Council”. According to the caption of the image, the President of Russia was chairing a session of the Security Council. There are different items during different time periods in the same desktop environment (similar image backgrounds), which can be seen here, here, and here. However, the only major difference in all of these images is that there is no portrait of Dr BR Ambedkar.

When the viral image is compared to similar images found on the official website of the President of Russia, it can be seen that the image of Dr BR Ambedkar had been digitally added. The viral photo had been morphed. The portrait that we see in all these images is in fact the State Seal of the Russian Federation.

The office seen in the photos is the meeting place of the Security Council in the Senate building of the Moscow Kremlin. In Russia, the security Council was formed in 1992 and the Security Council Office is a separate department from the Presidential Executive Office; its status within the Presidency is that of a directorate. There is no evidence to conclude that a portrait of Dr BR Ambedkar is in this meeting place.

The same image went viral earlier, which was later debunked by several organizations here & here.

To sum up, this photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s office with Ambedkar’s portrait gets a makeover.