MOSCOW – The Russians have been gossiping about Vladimir Putin’s health since the beginning of the pandemic – and the Kremlin has always dismissed the flood of rumors as “absolute nonsense.” But on Tuesday, Putin announced that he would isolate himself due to various COVID-19 infections within his circle.
The announcement, made by the Russian leader in a telephone conversation with his Tajik counterpart, according to a Kremlin reading, came after the typical stone-faced Putin set a different tone on Monday while admitting that the latest wave of COVID-19 is threatening its inner “circle,” and that, as a result, it may have to be quarantined.
At a public event in the Kremlin, Putin said: “Problems with COVID-19 have even occurred in my circle. We need to find out what’s really going on. I think I’ll have to quarantine soon. A lot of people she is sick around me. ”The president did not specify who had been infected in his circle.
The third wave of COVID-19 in Russia has been particularly brutal. According to a government report released last month, 215,000 Russians died of the virus in July, 42% more than the same period last year. But even given the terrible death toll, the country’s leader’s statement, known for his “sexist” lifestyle, came across uniquely vulnerable and startling journalists who have been covering for Putin for decades.
“At most, what we have confirmed [in the past] his sports injuries, his foot or back are damaged, “Pavel Lobkov, a veteran Russian television journalist, told The Daily Beast.” I remember that during his first term from 2001 to 2004, Putin basically drank beer from the same cup as the Kremlin pool reporters.He was never germophobic [former Romanian dictator] Nicolae Ceaușescu, who washed his hands with alcohol after each handshake ”.
The Russians pay a high price for the classic fatalism of the nation. The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is ravaging the country and killing thousands of people. To make matters worse is the fact that Russians remain skeptical about state-registered vaccines; only 31 percent of Russia’s 144 million people have been vaccinated. Putin received his anti-COVID shot from Sputnik V in the spring. “I can say that our vaccine really works,” he said then.
“As the Russians die like flies, the Kremlin hides Putin in some underground cave.”
Several senior Kremlin officials, including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, were infected with the virus during the first months of the pandemic last year. However, the Kremlin often boasted of the president’s “perfect health” and “disinfection tunnels” at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, on the outskirts of Moscow. Everyone who visits the president must go through the tunnels equipped with facial recognition technology and test the body temperature of the visitors, according to the state news agency RIA, which has published what it says is a video images of the tunnels.
Putin has also spent a considerable amount of time during the pandemic hidden in his beach house in the tourist town of Sochi on the Black Sea. Last year, a Russian investigative media outlet Proect reported that Putin had set up identical offices in his two residences for television addresses, so Russians would not know if the president was in Moscow or at his home on the beach. .
In September 2020, The Daily Beast interviewed several hotel owners and taxi drivers in the Altai Mountains, a beautiful region bordering Central Asia. At the time, rumors swirled that Putin was spending weeks at the Gazprom residence in the Altai Republic. “While the Russians are dying like flies, the Kremlin is hiding Putin in some underground cave,” said Leonid Zaitsev, a local taxi driver and guide.
Since then, the virus has continued to spread through Russia’s parliament, infecting and reinfecting MPs in the lower and upper houses. In December 2020, of the 11 deputies infected, at least five deputies had tested positive for the second time, according to the chairman of the State Duma, Vladimir Volodin.
We move rapidly to June of this year, when Moscow broke its own pandemic record, recording 9,120 new cases of COVID-19.
Discussing what special precautions are being taken to protect the president from the virus, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July: “You know that in the work process some people could contact sick people, that some of the president’s interlocutors they could have recently been ill ”. Peskov added that Putin’s visitors are going through “very exhaustive tests.” Still, the situation was “far from normal,” Peskov admitted.
But there are often reasons behind these statements by Putin and his spokesman.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, offered The Daily Beast his interpretation of the president’s recent statements: “The president spoke of quarantine to prepare Russians for forced vaccinations,” Markov said. “Mandatory vaccination will begin just after this week’s parliamentary elections.”