Russia In The Time Of Coronavirus, Part IX
The virus is in the Kremlin, quite literally.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, his first deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko, and his Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin are all infected with covid-19. So are Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova, Science and Education Minister Valery Falkov, and Construction Minister Vladimir Yakushev.
As the coronavirus rips through the Kremlin ruling elite, Russia surpassed Spain to become the second most infected country in the world, with only the United States reporting more confirmed cases.
If that’s not enough, journalistic investigations in both Russia and in the West are calling into question Russia’s surprisingly low death toll, which is something Kremlin officials have, until now, been boasting about. But those figures, it appears, have been falsified.
Just another week in our brave new world. So let’s get to it on the latest Power Vertical Podcast with Brian Whitmore, Maria Snegovaya, and Donald N. Jensen.
Intro Audio Clip: “Message from the President to the Federal Assembly” via the Kremlin under CC BY 4.0.
The Power Vertical is a CEPA podcast covering the Kremlin for Kremlin watchers. All opinions are those of the guests and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
