President Vladimir Putin told business leaders at his flagship economic forum this month that Russia is coping better than many other countries with COVID-19. Recent events are increasingly contradicting him.
Moscow on Friday reported a record-high 9,056 new COVID-19 cases, days after Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ordered mandatory vaccinations for at least 2 million employees as surging infections threaten to overwhelm the capital’s hospitals. That came weeks after Putin ruled out compulsory shots, even as inoculation rates are a fraction of those in Europe and the U.S.
"We are starting to go through this story again but with more severe consequences,” Sobyanin told state television, of the intensifying epidemic. Facing "explosive growth” in infections, officials are organizing new hospital facilities "practically every day and we barely manage,” he said.