Russian president Vladimir Putin, who previously said he needed to self-isolate after contacting with covid patients, is fully healthy, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Russian leader, told reporters on Tuesday.
"The president is absolutely healthy," he said, commenting on Putin's state of health. Answering a question about whether the president took a PCR test and whether that showed a negative result, Peskov said, "Absolutely."
The Kremlin spokesman clarified that there were several people who fell ill among the head of state's contacts but found it difficult to answer the question of whether they had been vaccinated. Peskov also declined to specify exactly who the infected people were, whether they were his closest relatives, guards or protocol officers.
"The doctors are doing their job. It is normal practice when a person has contact, he waits some time, some number of days," Peskov explained. "You and I know that the vaccine is guaranteed to protect you from severe cases of the disease, but nevertheless [getting sick] is possible," he added.
Putin did not endanger the health of others, Peskov assured. "As the doctors completed their research, completed the necessary procedures, then the decision [to self-isolate] was already made in accordance with the recommendations of specialists," the Kremlin spokesman said.
He disagreed with the view that it was illogical for Putin, who held several face-to-face meetings on Monday, to now go into self-isolation. "There is nothing illogical here," Peskov said. "At the time [Monday afternoon], doctors' investigations were still going on, no one's health was in danger," the presidential spokesman pointed out.
He specified that Putin's meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad took place on Monday "early in the day," "even before the decision to self-isolate was made." The Kremlin spokesman recalled that the president also awarded Russian winners of the Paralympics in Tokyo on Monday, chatted with Paralympians, and in the afternoon visited the Mulino training ground in the Nizhny Novgorod region, where he observed the West-2021 exercise. "After that, it was already decided that it was necessary to be on self-isolation for some time after all," Peskov said.
Online summits
"Isolation does not directly affect the work of the president, but just now there will be no in-person events for a while. But it does not affect the intensity, the president continues his activities by video conference," the Kremlin spokesman explained.
Peskov added that the Kremlin knows who exactly in the entourage of the head of state fell ill with coronavirus, but did not name that person. According to him, during Putin's self-imposed isolation, the same work regime will be in place as during the quarantine, when the president also had no face-to-face activities. The head of state will work from Novo-Ogarevo during these days.
The spokesman recalled that the Russian leader had a telephone conversation with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon on Tuesday, "also a series of other telephone conversations going on right now."
"Putin told Rahmon that, unfortunately, due to the fact that cases of coronavirus have been identified in the entourage of the head of state, in fact, the president is now a contact, so he must take a responsible position and not endanger the health of his colleagues - participants in the summits that are coming to Dushanbe tomorrow and the day after tomorrow," Peskov said. - "Therefore, the president will attend the meeting of the CSTO Collective security council in the narrow and extended format via videoconference, as well as the meeting of the SCO Council of heads of state and the joint meeting of the SCO and the CSTO member states".
Thus, "the president will stay in Moscow and will not personally participate in these events," summed up the press secretary of the Russian leader.
The Russian head of state was vaccinated against the coronavirus in the spring. Because of the pandemic, his schedule mostly includes meetings via video conference calls. On Monday, however, the president said he had cases of covid in his entourage, and in a telephone conversation with Rahmon on Tuesday, Putin said he was forced to self-isolate because of it.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS