With doppelganger, Ramzan Kadyrov’s Instagram account gets even weirder

FP may have published its list of Ramzan Kadyrov’s weirdest Instagrams a bit too soon. Instead of shutting down his account, as he threatened last week, the Chechen strongman appears to be doubling down on the photo-sharing site this week.

Take, for example, the Instagram aficionado’s decision to introduce his followers to what appeared to be his doppelganger. According to the Moscow Times, the caption to the photo below reads, “Dear friends, I will reveal a secret to you, but please don’t tell anybody. I have sent my double to work instead of me today. Let’s see how he manages!”

Around the same time, Kadyrov played guide to British actress Elizabeth Hurley, who is currently in Grozny filming a thriller with French actor (and Kadyrov kindred spirit) Gérard Depardieu. Below, the trio tours Grozny; Kadryov shows Hurley how to use an iPhone?; and the boys inspect a monster truck.

“I can’t dictate to Mr Depardieu and Miss Hurley whom they should meet with, but I hope they are not taking money from a person who is accused of involvement in egregious human rights violations,” Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch told the Telegraph. (The American actor Steven Seagal arrived in Grozny on Wednesday.)

And then Kadyrov’s two worlds collided, as the Chechen leader introduced both Hurley and Kadyrov #2 to his kitten (this is, by the way, a different creature than his cat named Chanel.)

In a vaguely worded Instagram message, Kadyrov later suggested that the photos of his double had been a “joke” he played on detractors who spread “rumors” about him, though he didn’t go into detail about how he had pulled it off — or why posting photos with a lookalike or a Photoshopped version of himself would silence his critics.

Oh, and did we mention this one?