MOSCOW (World) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman on Wednesday said that the president is shielded from the coronavirus by special disinfection tunnels. All visitors to his residence outside Moscow or those coming to meet him in the Kremlin must pass through the tunnels, he added.
According to Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, one such special tunnel, manufactured by a Russian company based in Penza, has been installed at Putin’s official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow and two more have been set up in the Kremlin.
He said they were installed when the pandemic was at its height in Russia.
Though the virus spread is on the wane, some restrictions in the Kremlin remained in place, said Peskov, though many had been removed. He said precautions regarding Putin’s health continued to be justified.
Footage published by the state-controlled RIA news agency on Tuesday night showed masked people passing through the tunnel being sprayed with disinfectant from the ceiling and from the side.
According to the RIA, the disinfectant is a fine mist that covered people’s clothes and any exposed parts of the body.
Putin spent much of the pandemic managing the affairs of the country from his residence rather than the Kremlin, chairing video conference meetings from a room that his critics termed a bunker.
In April, Peskov said that anyone meeting Putin in person underwent testing for the coronavirus. A month later, Peskov said he had himself been infected.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field