Putin knows how to rule Russia as an autocrat. But he seems on the sidelines amid coronavirus crisis.
But personality cults can be fickle things.
Days before the opening, the church scrambled to remove the mosaic, after Putin called it premature.
The middle of a pandemic and economic tailspin is not an ideal moment for such veneration. Russia’s covid-19 cases are climbing by more than 10,000 a day, yet the president is strangely absent. He’s holed up in his country retreat, participating in gloomy videoconference calls where rising numbers underscore the scale of the crisis and bureaucrats search vainly for an optimistic note.
Putin has delegated the fight to subordinates, trying to avoid any direct fallout from unpopular isolation measures. Regional leaders, however, were left flat-footed when he tasked them to handle what may become Russia’s biggest crisis since the 1990s chaos following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Days before the opening, the church scrambled to remove the mosaic, after Putin called it premature.
The middle of a pandemic and economic tailspin is not an ideal moment for such veneration. Russia’s covid-19 cases are climbing by more than 10,000 a day, yet the president is strangely absent. He’s holed up in his country retreat, participating in gloomy videoconference calls where rising numbers underscore the scale of the crisis and bureaucrats search vainly for an optimistic note.
Putin has delegated the fight to subordinates, trying to avoid any direct fallout from unpopular isolation measures. Regional leaders, however, were left flat-footed when he tasked them to handle what may become Russia’s biggest crisis since the 1990s chaos following the fall of the Soviet Union.
No comments:
Post a Comment