President Vladimir Putin is not waiting out the coronavirus pandemic in a bunker, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.
Putin began working remotely at the start of April, a week after visiting Russia’s main coronavirus hospital in Moscow whose chief doctor tested positive for the deadly virus soon after the president’s visit.
“There are always a lot of rumors and most often they have nothing to do with reality,” Peskov said in an interview with the Argumenty i Fakty weekly when asked about rumors of Putin hiding out “in some bunker.”
“The president is in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow where he lives and works [and] conducts all work events, mainly by video conference,” Peskov said.
Any cabinet ministers and banking executives he meets face-to-face are required to take coronavirus tests, he added.
“It’s obviously impossible to get a meeting with the president without proper testing. Those who do are tested in one way or another,” Peskov said.
Russia confirmed 87,147 coronavirus infections Monday, surpassing China to become the world’s ninth most-affected country amid the pandemic. In total, 794 people have been killed by the virus in Russia.
More than 3 million Covid-19 tests have been carried out so far, according to Russia’s consumer protection watchdog.