Kremlin Distances Itself from Unpopular New Coronavirus Restrictions in Moscow

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 12 – Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that the new coronavirus restrictions that the Moscow city government has imposed are within the power of the city to do, thus distancing Vladimir Putin from them given his efforts to promote the notion that Russia has succeeded in combatting the pandemic (regnum.ru/news/3295361.html and realtribune.ru/kreml-gotovit-pobedu-nad-koronavirusom-pochemu-sobyanin-pugaet-moskvichej-tretej-volnoj).

            Instead of focusing on the exploding number of new cases of infection in Russia, the Kremlin leader continues to talk about providing assistance to other countries dealing with the pandemic and shares his own experience with getting a temperature after his second shot of the vaccine (regnum.ru/news/3295318.html and tass.ru/obschestvo/11634509).

            Russian officials reported registering 13,510 new cases of infection in the country as a whole including 6701 cases in Moscow city and 889 in Moscow oblast over the last 24 hours. They also reported 399 deaths from the coronavirus (t.me/COVID2019_official/3047).

            Faced with this explosion in cases in the capital where vaccinations continue to lag, Moscow Mayor ordered firms to shut down most in-person operations over the next week, to send home those without vaccinations, to have the elderly remain home, and to close at night restaurants and bars and all the time recreational centers (t.me/COVID2019_official/3049).

            The regulations are confusing, but Moscow officials say that they are not considering introducing restrictions on entering the city; and they are seeking to promote vaccinations by offering prizes of cars to some of those who do get the shots (regnum.ru/news/3295382.html and regnum.ru/news/3295377.html).

            Epidemiologists are speaking of a third wave in Russia now and some are even suggesting that “a Moscow strain” of the virus has appeared (regnum.ru/news/3295359.html). Not surprisingly, businesses in the capital are anything but thrilled about the shutdown as they must continue to pay workers (rbc.ru/business/12/06/2021/60c4cba99a7947297f939dfe).

            As is typical in Russia, Moscow is getting almost all the attention, but there are serious problems elsewhere as the pandemic continues to ebb and flow across the country (regnum.ru/news/society/3287593.html). Hard-hit Karelia and St. Petersburg have reintroduced restrictions they had lifted (regnum.ru/news/3295300.html).

The Chechen authorities are forcing people to get shots (kavkazr.com/a/31301887.html). People in Daghestan believe tourists are bringing the coronavirus into their republic and are demanding action (kavkazr.com/a/31300258.html). And Adygey residents are angry at an official order that the ill aren’t to be treated in hospitals unless they have been vaccinated (natpressru.info/index.php?newsid=12467).

Elsewhere on the vaccine front, some analysts believe that only the introduction of foreign vaccines will lead Russians to get the shots given how little they trust the Russian government and its much-ballyhooed Sputnik-5 (newizv.ru/article/general/12-06-2021/vopros-dnya-spasut-li-rossiyan-ot-kovida-zarubezhnye-vaktsiny).

Russian researchers say that they will have a coronavirus vaccine for children by September (tass.ru/obschestvo/11634423), and a Moscow TV doctor says that those who don’t get vaccinated must be ready for more restrictions to be imposed given the direction the pandemic is taking in Russia (kp.ru/daily/27290/4428341/).