The fight against coronavirus in Russia has recognizable national characteristics. President Vladimir Putin is isolated from everyone, officials are vaccinated "through pull", and state employees are forced to vaccinate using administrative resources.
Save the President
On September 14, President Vladimir Putin received Alexander Lukashenko at his Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi and boldly greeted him by the hand. The Belarusian leader, according to him, has already had a coronavirus and, most likely, could count on not getting infected a second time. But the courage of Vladimir Putin, who is at risk by age, could seem desperate to the uninitiated: in addition to Lukashenka, there were protocol officers, a Kremlin photographer and cameraman, as well as a film crew of the Rossiya channel's propaganda program Moscow.Kremlin.Putin, in which Vladimir Soloviev and Pavel Zarubin weekly talk about the exploits of the head of state. And all this amid reports of an increase in the incidence of coronavirus.
However, Putin's courage will not be so desperate if you take a closer look at the same program "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin". Even at the height of the epidemic, Zarubin, who had previously announced his stories about Putin directly from the studio of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, standing next to Solovyov, suddenly and without any explanation began to get in touch on TV from a mysterious room resembling a hotel room.
The interlocutors of the Project explain that all people who have to be next to the head of state, regardless of their regalia and age, have to serve a very strict two-week quarantine. There are at least three places for the supreme quarantine.
Back in the summer, everyone who was to be with the president was divided between Moscow and Sochi. Some of the staff of the presidential administration, personal photographers and cameramen, a part of the film crew "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin", as well as, for example, 30 important employees of the nuclear industry were sent to the Sochi boarding house "Dagomys". There is a very strict regime: you need to sit in the rooms and wait for the results of the coronavirus test. If the test shows a negative result, then people are transported to a more comfortable boarding house "Rus" nearby - there you can already walk around the territory. No one else is allowed in these boarding houses: the "Project" correspondent tried to book rooms there, but in "Rus" the employees did not answer the phone, and in "Dagomys" they said that they were probably closed until the end of the year.
At the end of the two-week quarantine, the inhabitants of "Rus" are allowed to see the president. It was from there that officials and journalists traveled to the Sochi residence “Bocharov Ruchei” to meet with Lukashenka. And it was from there that 30 employees of the nuclear industry, including 66-year-old Honored Academician Georgy Rykovanov, were loaded onto a plane and taken to the Kremlin. Thanks to all these quarantine measures at the expense of the budget, on September 23, Putin shook Rykovanov's hand and personally handed him the Star of the Hero of Labor, without fear of infection.
Others in contact with the head of state were sent to isolation in a complex of government dachas on Kosygin Street in Moscow. There is a similar scheme - while waiting for the test, you need to sit in your rooms, and then you can walk around the territory. And only at the end of two weeks are they allowed to travel to the residence of the President of Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow - from there the head of state held many events.
Finally, some people close to the president should live right on the territory of Novo-Ogaryovo, in a part intended for guests. But the places there quickly ran out.
It is important that the strict two-week quarantine regime applies to everyone who wants to be near the president, without exception. A top manager of one of the state corporations says: his meeting with the head of state is still planned, but he has already received a call from the Kremlin and warned that he will have to be locked up for two weeks, but where exactly has not been specified yet. Senior officials are given the right to choose a place for isolation. This is how the head of Rosmolodezh Alexander Bugaev, the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller, the head of the United Aircraft Corporation Yuri Slyusar and many others were quarantined.
The president communicates with everyone else either by video link or at a very long distance. For example, on September 23, senators, including the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, did not approach him at a meeting with the head of state, listening to Putin's speech at a respectful distance.
Such a scheme means that the work of the president is practically not covered by journalists - except for a personal operator, a photographer of state TASS and a film crew of VGTRK, no one is allowed to attend events. And all the journalists in the Kremlin pool write their reports while watching the broadcast on the Russia-24 channel. It was thanks to these technical tricks that readers of Kommersant were able to read Andrei Kolesnikov's report from Putin's meeting with the senators. Traditionally, there was not a word about the fact that the author was not present at the event.
Not a single Western country informed visitors of the heads of state about the need to quarantine, and even less did they close top officials from journalists. On the contrary, the elderly President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, himself went into isolation for two weeks after contact with a patient with a coronavirus infection. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was diagnosed with the virus, did the same, and after recovering, he immediately returned to public work. And, for example, US President Donald Trump is still giving briefings to a pool of White House reporters.
Perhaps, thanks to the unique opportunity to lock up all his entourage and guests, Putin, unlike the whole country, may not rush to the coronavirus vaccine developed in Russia. Officials who did not have Putin's power, on the contrary, rushed to give themselves injections from a dangerous disease when ordinary citizens did not have such an opportunity yet.
Thug injection
The coronavirus vaccine trial began in Russia in mid-June - the first two stages required only 76 healthy volunteers under the age of 60. At the same time, employees of the central office of Sberbank were invited to join the group - they received a letter by mail from their superiors with a proposal to test the effectiveness of the vaccine for themselves. The conditions offered were not bad, for the duration of the tests it was necessary to live in a sanatorium, and in the end there were about 20 applicants. But nobody was taken. “There was a feeling that only very young people were suitable, without allergies and any diseases - we didn't find such,” says the source at the bank.
This story could testify to the careful selection of subjects, if it were not for the parallel developments. A former high-ranking federal official, who is retired by age and did not fit the official criteria in any way, says that he was able to vaccinate without problems in June. “I found friends in the center of them. Gamaleys (they developed a vaccine there), they offered to be vaccinated. I decided it was safe and went to the Gamalei. I paid for the tests and I was vaccinated, ”the source recalls.
In fact, representatives of the elite had free access to the vaccine even earlier - in April, Bloomberg reported, without giving specific names. Officials and propaganda angrily denied the publication, but on August 11, Putin announced the registration of the vaccine in Russia and admitted that his daughter had already been vaccinated by that time. Whether she was part of the group of subjects, the president did not specify.
After the registration of the drug, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, officially announced the vaccinations (he emphasized that by this action he was campaigning for the vaccination of ordinary citizens), Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
But in fact, all elite representatives who wished were able to get vaccinated before the vaccine was registered and without joining a group of volunteers - everything depended on having the right acquaintances, says an interlocutor who regularly attends meetings in the Kremlin, and two more officials confirm. One of the interlocutors says that he agreed on the vaccination through the Russian Direct Investment Fund - it was he who invested in the development of the Sputnik V vaccine, which officials are inoculated with. The head of the foundation, Kirill Dmitriev, is married to Natalya Popova, a friend of Katerina Tikhonova, the president's daughter. Dmitriev himself and his family, of course, also took root. Another high-ranking interlocutor claims that he negotiated through the leadership of the Ministry of Health, only in its version, for the secret service already had to be paid - 30 thousand rubles for an injection. “This is by pull,” the interlocutor explained.
Everyone beat out the conditions as best he could: someone agreed to inject himself “just like that”, someone entered the group of volunteers, but with an indispensable condition - unlike ordinary citizens, in no case get a placebo. Most say they didn't pay for the injection. Among the "pricked" interlocutors "Project" named, including the former head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin and some of the current employees of the Kremlin administration.
Medical lawyers interviewed by the Project claim that such agreements are illegal and even fall under the Criminal Code. In the center of them. The Gamaleis declined to comment - the deputy director of the scientific institution, Alexander Khovaev, in response to a request from the Project, said that they were not authorized “to contact the media on these issues” (although usually employees and management actively give comments to the press), and advised to contact the Ministry of Health. There, at the time of publication, the request was not answered.
Illegal vaccination
Medical attorney Polina Gabay:
“If there was the use of an unregistered vaccine in humans with the exception of a group participating in clinical trials, then this is a violation of the law. According to the general rule, only registered drugs can be in circulation, and the existing exceptions are unlikely to apply to the case under discussion. For violation of these requirements, even criminal liability is provided, including in Articles 238 and 238.1 of the Criminal Code (this article provides for punishment up to six years of imprisonment - "Project) - for the circulation of unregistered medicines and for the provision of services that do not meet the requirements security accordingly. However, I would like to note that so far there was no proper evidence of the use of the vaccine before its registration, the vaccine was officially registered in August this year and is currently free to circulate on the Russian market. "
Medical attorney Dmitry Ayvazyan:
“The situation when a researcher gives a vaccine to a test subject bypassing the test group violates the Constitution, the law“ On protecting the health of citizens ”and other legislative acts. But unlike the civilized world, there is no criminal prosecution for violations of the test procedure in Russia. At the most, upon detection of such a case, the contract can be terminated with the tester. The case will only be opened if it is proved that the patient has developed complications from the vaccination. "
Volunteers under duress
In mid-September, the director of a school in Troitsk near Moscow gathered a team for a production meeting and said: in a month, a team of doctors will arrive and check whether all teachers can be vaccinated against coronavirus. After that, everyone in the school "will" have to give this injection, the head emphasized. The teacher who told this story to the Project believes that the school did not receive any instructions from above, the director just out of habit tries to provide the maximum in everything.
However, at least in several more budgetary organizations, the Project was told that as soon as they had the opportunity to take a root, the leaders tried to oblige them to do it. Despite the fact that the vaccine, although registered, is still undergoing a "post-marketing clinical trial".
For example, an employee of the Moscow housing and communal services company said that their management strongly recommended everyone to fill out an application for vaccination on mos.ru, and those who disagree will face consequences. Some subdivisions of the Moscow metro also received a recommendation to vaccinate employees - they were secretly asked to vaccinate a third of their subdivisions' employees, says one of the interlocutors. At the same time, formally, the management encourages employees to simply enroll in volunteers.
However, the pressure on employees often does not end with anything. In August, an employee of one of the Moscow libraries, Elena, was asked by the boss to sign a list of those who agreed to receive a flu shot. The librarian, despite strong recommendations, refused, and then the manager simply asked her to sign a document on familiarization with the rules of vaccination. But after a while, a meeting of the management of the libraries took place, after which the chief began to call the employees one by one and tell them that they needed to register for voluntary vaccination against COVID-19. When Elena asked if it was possible to refuse, the manager told her that “now is the situation”, that it is necessary to register so that the employees are “left behind” - and then you can refuse. After some time, the boss once again asked the employees if they would be vaccinated, and, having heard a categorical refusal, did not raise this topic anymore, says Elena. So far, the management has not raised this topic anymore.
However, in many other structures "Project" was assured that there is no compulsory vaccination: for example, doctors of several Moscow hospitals claim that they are vaccinated only at will, the same is said in the VGTRK holding. But how long such loyalty will last is unknown, the Russian leadership is determined to instill as many people as possible.
Save the President
On September 14, President Vladimir Putin received Alexander Lukashenko at his Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi and boldly greeted him by the hand. The Belarusian leader, according to him, has already had a coronavirus and, most likely, could count on not getting infected a second time. But the courage of Vladimir Putin, who is at risk by age, could seem desperate to the uninitiated: in addition to Lukashenka, there were protocol officers, a Kremlin photographer and cameraman, as well as a film crew of the Rossiya channel's propaganda program Moscow.Kremlin.Putin, in which Vladimir Soloviev and Pavel Zarubin weekly talk about the exploits of the head of state. And all this amid reports of an increase in the incidence of coronavirus.
However, Putin's courage will not be so desperate if you take a closer look at the same program "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin". Even at the height of the epidemic, Zarubin, who had previously announced his stories about Putin directly from the studio of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, standing next to Solovyov, suddenly and without any explanation began to get in touch on TV from a mysterious room resembling a hotel room.
The interlocutors of the Project explain that all people who have to be next to the head of state, regardless of their regalia and age, have to serve a very strict two-week quarantine. There are at least three places for the supreme quarantine.
Back in the summer, everyone who was to be with the president was divided between Moscow and Sochi. Some of the staff of the presidential administration, personal photographers and cameramen, a part of the film crew "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin", as well as, for example, 30 important employees of the nuclear industry were sent to the Sochi boarding house "Dagomys". There is a very strict regime: you need to sit in the rooms and wait for the results of the coronavirus test. If the test shows a negative result, then people are transported to a more comfortable boarding house "Rus" nearby - there you can already walk around the territory. No one else is allowed in these boarding houses: the "Project" correspondent tried to book rooms there, but in "Rus" the employees did not answer the phone, and in "Dagomys" they said that they were probably closed until the end of the year.
At the end of the two-week quarantine, the inhabitants of "Rus" are allowed to see the president. It was from there that officials and journalists traveled to the Sochi residence “Bocharov Ruchei” to meet with Lukashenka. And it was from there that 30 employees of the nuclear industry, including 66-year-old Honored Academician Georgy Rykovanov, were loaded onto a plane and taken to the Kremlin. Thanks to all these quarantine measures at the expense of the budget, on September 23, Putin shook Rykovanov's hand and personally handed him the Star of the Hero of Labor, without fear of infection.
Others in contact with the head of state were sent to isolation in a complex of government dachas on Kosygin Street in Moscow. There is a similar scheme - while waiting for the test, you need to sit in your rooms, and then you can walk around the territory. And only at the end of two weeks are they allowed to travel to the residence of the President of Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow - from there the head of state held many events.
Finally, some people close to the president should live right on the territory of Novo-Ogaryovo, in a part intended for guests. But the places there quickly ran out.
It is important that the strict two-week quarantine regime applies to everyone who wants to be near the president, without exception. A top manager of one of the state corporations says: his meeting with the head of state is still planned, but he has already received a call from the Kremlin and warned that he will have to be locked up for two weeks, but where exactly has not been specified yet. Senior officials are given the right to choose a place for isolation. This is how the head of Rosmolodezh Alexander Bugaev, the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller, the head of the United Aircraft Corporation Yuri Slyusar and many others were quarantined.
The president communicates with everyone else either by video link or at a very long distance. For example, on September 23, senators, including the speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, did not approach him at a meeting with the head of state, listening to Putin's speech at a respectful distance.
Such a scheme means that the work of the president is practically not covered by journalists - except for a personal operator, a photographer of state TASS and a film crew of VGTRK, no one is allowed to attend events. And all the journalists in the Kremlin pool write their reports while watching the broadcast on the Russia-24 channel. It was thanks to these technical tricks that readers of Kommersant were able to read Andrei Kolesnikov's report from Putin's meeting with the senators. Traditionally, there was not a word about the fact that the author was not present at the event.
Not a single Western country informed visitors of the heads of state about the need to quarantine, and even less did they close top officials from journalists. On the contrary, the elderly President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, himself went into isolation for two weeks after contact with a patient with a coronavirus infection. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was diagnosed with the virus, did the same, and after recovering, he immediately returned to public work. And, for example, US President Donald Trump is still giving briefings to a pool of White House reporters.
Perhaps, thanks to the unique opportunity to lock up all his entourage and guests, Putin, unlike the whole country, may not rush to the coronavirus vaccine developed in Russia. Officials who did not have Putin's power, on the contrary, rushed to give themselves injections from a dangerous disease when ordinary citizens did not have such an opportunity yet.
Thug injection
The coronavirus vaccine trial began in Russia in mid-June - the first two stages required only 76 healthy volunteers under the age of 60. At the same time, employees of the central office of Sberbank were invited to join the group - they received a letter by mail from their superiors with a proposal to test the effectiveness of the vaccine for themselves. The conditions offered were not bad, for the duration of the tests it was necessary to live in a sanatorium, and in the end there were about 20 applicants. But nobody was taken. “There was a feeling that only very young people were suitable, without allergies and any diseases - we didn't find such,” says the source at the bank.
This story could testify to the careful selection of subjects, if it were not for the parallel developments. A former high-ranking federal official, who is retired by age and did not fit the official criteria in any way, says that he was able to vaccinate without problems in June. “I found friends in the center of them. Gamaleys (they developed a vaccine there), they offered to be vaccinated. I decided it was safe and went to the Gamalei. I paid for the tests and I was vaccinated, ”the source recalls.
In fact, representatives of the elite had free access to the vaccine even earlier - in April, Bloomberg reported, without giving specific names. Officials and propaganda angrily denied the publication, but on August 11, Putin announced the registration of the vaccine in Russia and admitted that his daughter had already been vaccinated by that time. Whether she was part of the group of subjects, the president did not specify.
After the registration of the drug, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, officially announced the vaccinations (he emphasized that by this action he was campaigning for the vaccination of ordinary citizens), Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
But in fact, all elite representatives who wished were able to get vaccinated before the vaccine was registered and without joining a group of volunteers - everything depended on having the right acquaintances, says an interlocutor who regularly attends meetings in the Kremlin, and two more officials confirm. One of the interlocutors says that he agreed on the vaccination through the Russian Direct Investment Fund - it was he who invested in the development of the Sputnik V vaccine, which officials are inoculated with. The head of the foundation, Kirill Dmitriev, is married to Natalya Popova, a friend of Katerina Tikhonova, the president's daughter. Dmitriev himself and his family, of course, also took root. Another high-ranking interlocutor claims that he negotiated through the leadership of the Ministry of Health, only in its version, for the secret service already had to be paid - 30 thousand rubles for an injection. “This is by pull,” the interlocutor explained.
Everyone beat out the conditions as best he could: someone agreed to inject himself “just like that”, someone entered the group of volunteers, but with an indispensable condition - unlike ordinary citizens, in no case get a placebo. Most say they didn't pay for the injection. Among the "pricked" interlocutors "Project" named, including the former head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin and some of the current employees of the Kremlin administration.
Medical lawyers interviewed by the Project claim that such agreements are illegal and even fall under the Criminal Code. In the center of them. The Gamaleis declined to comment - the deputy director of the scientific institution, Alexander Khovaev, in response to a request from the Project, said that they were not authorized “to contact the media on these issues” (although usually employees and management actively give comments to the press), and advised to contact the Ministry of Health. There, at the time of publication, the request was not answered.
Illegal vaccination
Medical attorney Polina Gabay:
“If there was the use of an unregistered vaccine in humans with the exception of a group participating in clinical trials, then this is a violation of the law. According to the general rule, only registered drugs can be in circulation, and the existing exceptions are unlikely to apply to the case under discussion. For violation of these requirements, even criminal liability is provided, including in Articles 238 and 238.1 of the Criminal Code (this article provides for punishment up to six years of imprisonment - "Project) - for the circulation of unregistered medicines and for the provision of services that do not meet the requirements security accordingly. However, I would like to note that so far there was no proper evidence of the use of the vaccine before its registration, the vaccine was officially registered in August this year and is currently free to circulate on the Russian market. "
Medical attorney Dmitry Ayvazyan:
“The situation when a researcher gives a vaccine to a test subject bypassing the test group violates the Constitution, the law“ On protecting the health of citizens ”and other legislative acts. But unlike the civilized world, there is no criminal prosecution for violations of the test procedure in Russia. At the most, upon detection of such a case, the contract can be terminated with the tester. The case will only be opened if it is proved that the patient has developed complications from the vaccination. "
Volunteers under duress
In mid-September, the director of a school in Troitsk near Moscow gathered a team for a production meeting and said: in a month, a team of doctors will arrive and check whether all teachers can be vaccinated against coronavirus. After that, everyone in the school "will" have to give this injection, the head emphasized. The teacher who told this story to the Project believes that the school did not receive any instructions from above, the director just out of habit tries to provide the maximum in everything.
However, at least in several more budgetary organizations, the Project was told that as soon as they had the opportunity to take a root, the leaders tried to oblige them to do it. Despite the fact that the vaccine, although registered, is still undergoing a "post-marketing clinical trial".
For example, an employee of the Moscow housing and communal services company said that their management strongly recommended everyone to fill out an application for vaccination on mos.ru, and those who disagree will face consequences. Some subdivisions of the Moscow metro also received a recommendation to vaccinate employees - they were secretly asked to vaccinate a third of their subdivisions' employees, says one of the interlocutors. At the same time, formally, the management encourages employees to simply enroll in volunteers.
However, the pressure on employees often does not end with anything. In August, an employee of one of the Moscow libraries, Elena, was asked by the boss to sign a list of those who agreed to receive a flu shot. The librarian, despite strong recommendations, refused, and then the manager simply asked her to sign a document on familiarization with the rules of vaccination. But after a while, a meeting of the management of the libraries took place, after which the chief began to call the employees one by one and tell them that they needed to register for voluntary vaccination against COVID-19. When Elena asked if it was possible to refuse, the manager told her that “now is the situation”, that it is necessary to register so that the employees are “left behind” - and then you can refuse. After some time, the boss once again asked the employees if they would be vaccinated, and, having heard a categorical refusal, did not raise this topic anymore, says Elena. So far, the management has not raised this topic anymore.
However, in many other structures "Project" was assured that there is no compulsory vaccination: for example, doctors of several Moscow hospitals claim that they are vaccinated only at will, the same is said in the VGTRK holding. But how long such loyalty will last is unknown, the Russian leadership is determined to instill as many people as possible.
