Paul Goble
Staunton, April 2 – Even more than has been the case in Western countries, in Russia, Putin’s war in Ukraine has driven almost all other subjects off the front pages of newspapers and off television news programs. But life goes on, and two other developments in Russia today are too critical not to report.
On the one hand, despite the coronavirus pandemic being far from over, vaccinations against the disease have virtually stopped in Russia, prompting some observers to predict that the country will have a new surge sometime in the coming months, one that may be far worse than expected (rosbalt.ru/russia/2022/04/06/1952157.html and svpressa.ru/society/article/330357/).
And on the other hand, telephone bomb threats have become so ubiquitous that they have forced some schools to go to distance learning because of doubts about security (stoletie.ru/lenta/v_magadane_shkoly_pereveli_na_distancionnoje_obuchenije_iz-za_ugroz_minirovanija_547.htm).
Hospitals have also been evacuated (crimea.mk.ru/incident/2022/04/08/v-simferopole-i-yalte-soobshhili-o-minirovanii-bolnic.html); and in at least one case, a Serbian plane diverted because of a bomb threat (balkanist.ru/zaminirovannyj-serbskij-samolyot-blagopoluchno-prizemlilsya-v-moskve/).
While it does not appear that the latest wave of such threats has forced the million people to be evacuated from homes, hospitals, schools and work places as was the case in 2018, it is clear that the new wave is imposing both economic and psychological costs on an already hard-pressed population.
Every time a facility is closed, it has real costs in production; but more seriously, it raises tensions among the population and leads ever more Russians to ask why their government can’t protect them from this plague (cf. windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-wave-of-telephone-bomb-threats-in.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/03/evacuations-following-bomb-threats.html).
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