The performance was staged at an AI conference hosted by Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, which has increasingly branched into technology.

The clip came days after AIDOL, which was described as Russia’s first anthropomorphic robot, fell just seconds into its debut appearance at a technology event.

The sorry display prompted concerns about Russia’s domestic robotics development, which has been crippled by Western sanctions on supply chains, structural economic issues and a brain drain of top innovators since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Later at the Moscow exhibition, Putin called for a national taskforce to advance the nation’s work on home-grown generative AI models, which he said were vital to preserving “national sovereignty”.

He was offered the chance to test one of Sberbank’s new smart cash machines, which not only dispense cash but can give customers a health reading using pulse rate and blood pressure, but he declined.

“I just had my annual check-up,” he said. “Thank God, everything is fine.”

Putin is historically known to be opposed to new technology and this week the Kremlin confirmed that the 73-year-old does not use AI but admitted that officials who work for him do.

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