As I write this, Russia is firmly in the grip of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every day, there are about 22,000 reported new infections—twice as many as during the peak of the first wave in May 2020—and more than 600 deaths. The new Delta variant of the virus, which Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin says is responsible for 90 per cent of new infections in the Russian capital, has caught Russia almost completely unawares.
Foreign Policy: The incomprehensible enormity of Russia’s botched pandemic response
People queue up to receive the Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19, in a vaccination centre in a shopping mall, in Moscow on June 29, 2021. - The Kremlin on June 29, conceded that Russia would not reach its 60 percent vaccination target by the end of summer as the country registered its highest daily death toll.
