Putin lives in ‘bubble’ to avoid catching coronavirus

Anyone hoping for an audience with President Vladimir Putin must first spend two weeks in quarantine.

Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via a teleconference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on Friday. Picture: AFP

A few days before Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19, a Russian investigative website revealed the rules for anyone hoping for an audience with President Vladimir Putin: they must first spend two weeks in quarantine.

While publicly seeking, like Mr Trump, to downplay the threat posed by the virus, Mr Putin, 67, has taken a very different — and far more cautious — approach to protecting his own health.

He has reportedly spent the past six months living in a “coronavirus-free bubble” in his bunker-like residence outside Moscow, rarely venturing out.

The Kremlin announced in June that a “disinfection tunnel” had been installed at the residence through which all visitors must pass before seeing the president.

It has also emerged that Second World War veterans — some of them in their nineties — who joined Mr Putin on the podium in Red Square in June for the postponed annual victory parade had been put up by the government at a health resort for the previous fortnight.

Mr Putin’s cautious approach is in contrast to that of other strongmen, such as Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president, or Jair Bolsonaro, his Brazilian counterpart, who have coupled a dismissive attitude to the risk posed by COVID-19 with a Trumpian disregard for the threat to their own health. Mr Bolsonaro went down with the virus in July.

Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be pursuing a middle course. Although he has appeared in public on several occasions in recent months without a mask, he has also maintained a good distance from others.

On Saturday he sent a message to Mr Trump: “My wife, Peng Liyuan, and I express our sympathies to you and your wife and wish you a fast recovery.”

The Sunday Times