For the past year the Kremlin has trumpeted its success in fighting COVID-19. It eschewed lockdowns and hailed its home-grown Sputnik V vaccine. In early June, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, boasted to thousands of guests at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, billed as the world’s largest post-pandemic international gathering, that “the current situation in Russia allows us to hold such events without any particular risk of spreading the infection.”
Coronavirus
The Economist: COVID-19 deaths in Russia are soaring
Medical workers wearing a personal protective equipment PPE tend to a patient infected with the Covid-19 at the intensive care unit of the Mariinsky Hospital in Saint Petersburg on July 7, 2021.
