Putin and Kim Jong-un lookalikes rush to help Zelenskyy impersonator escape Ukraine invasion

Quite the story

Two men working professionally as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un lookalikes have managed to smuggle their fellow peer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy lookalike out of Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion. In an exclusive with the Daily Star, Slawek Sobala - a Polish man who impersonates Putin - and his regular conspirator Howard X, who closely resembles North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, went above and beyond their regular doppelgänger duties to organise safe passage for Zelenskyy impersonator Umid Isabaev from Kyiv to Poland. Isabaev went viral for his resemblance to the current Ukrainian president after he was spotted on the metro in Russia in 2019. [caption id="attachment_323422" align="alignnone" width="2048"]

Credit: Getty - The two lookalikes spotted at the 2018 World Cup in Russia[/caption] X, the Kim Jong-un double, reached out to Sobala after realising that Isabaev was trapped in the nation's capital, Kyiv, where he had been working and living for some time. Thanks to their contacts in the city, the two were able to arrange for a member of the Ukrainian resistance to carry out his extraction. On March 8, Isabaev made his way to a safe house 100 kilometres from his Kyiv apartment and after hiding out for a few days, made the journey by car to the Shehyni border checkpoint in Lviv Oblast in the west of the country. As you can see in the video above, Isabaev crossed over the border to Poland around 7:45am on March 12 alongside reams of other refugees fleeing the now war-stricken nation. More than three million civilians are said to have been displaced due to the conflict. In the caption to a post on Howard X's Facebook page, his representation noted that help carrying out the extraction was paramount given that "all public transport [was] halted in Kyiv" and Isabaev was unable to reach the train station, no to mention being "too dangerous to walk due to erratic gunfire and explosions." X went on to tell the Star that he told the Zelenskyy impersonator "you need to get out of here because who knows what will happen if Russia gets hold of a Zelenskyy double." Luckily, that never happened and despite being detained at the border because of his nationality, Isabaev was successfully extracted and put up in a hotel. [caption id="attachment_323420" align="alignnone" width="1560"]

Credit: Howard X's Facebook/Houssam Darbou - Isabaev photographed at the Polish checkpoint[/caption] Isabaev and Sobala finally met for the first time on March 13, just a day after he made it into his the Putin impersonator's native country of Poland. He and Howard X are said to have footed the bill for the entire process, as well as paying for his food and accommodation. Sobala - who also goes by the stage name Steve Poland - has revealed that he too fears for his life following the invasion and Putin's assault on Ukraine. Afterwards, the two reportedly went out for a beer to relax. [caption id="attachment_323419" align="alignnone" width="1600"]