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.
Photo: “Meeting with permanent members of the Security Council via videoconference” by the President of Russia under CC BY 4.0.
WP Post Author
Brian Whitmore is Director of the Russia Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Before joining CEPA he was Senior Russia Analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He also worked as a foreign correspondent for The Boston Globe in Moscow and Prague; as a graduate instructor in the Department of Government and International Studies at the University of South Carolina; and as a visiting lecturer in the History Faculty at Mechnikov National University in Odessa, Ukraine and the International Relations Faculty at St. Petersburg State University.
May 15, 2020
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.
