MOSCOW — Muscovites got a four-hour notice Sunday night on a sweeping quarantine that will keep them inside their homes unless they are walking a pet, taking out the trash or visiting the nearest grocery store. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s decree did not take effect until midnight, but the confusion was immediate.
Within an hour, prominent Russian lawmaker Andrei Klishas questioned the legality of Sobyanin’s order, arguing that only federal authorities could impose such restrictions. While some state media said there was not a curfew for the Moscow region, video of police announcing one from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. circulated on social media.
It capped a week of mixed messaging from Russian authorities on the coronavirus pandemic, as President Vladimir Putin has shown a reluctance to be too closely associated with combating the disease and has delegated enacting tough measures to others.
With Moscow declaring a stricter quarantine than most European cities, one blogger for the popular Echo of Moscow independent radio station wondered whether Sobyanin is now making the key decisions for Russia.
“It's a natural separation of responsibilities for Putin, who is the czar and the father of the nation who can contribute only the good news,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, chairman of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
For a country spanning two continents ravaged by the pandemic, Russia has a relatively low number of confirmed cases: 1,836. But the number of new cases per day has been steadily increasing, with Monday’s 302 new diagnoses setting another high.
In a televised speech Wednesday, Putin addressed the country’s coronavirus response for the first time, postponing a vote on constitutional amendments and declaring paid time off this week for the whole country. But Putin stopped short of mandatory commercial closures or stay-at-home orders, prompting many Russians to book travel to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
That led to a series of clarifications from various officials, but not Putin. Sobyanin ordered all parks, restaurants, spas and other nonessential businesses closed for the week — a restriction that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin then extended to the entire country — while presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russians should work or study remotely rather than treat the week like a holiday.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin attends a government meeting on the containment of covid-19, in Moscow on March 30, 2020. (Photo by Alexander Astafyev/SPUTNIK/ AFP/Getty Images)
A day after Putin’s address, Peskov also declared, “We have no epidemic” in Russia, undermining Sobyanin’s tough talk. Then in a televised meeting with his envoys Monday afternoon, Putin publicly backed Sobyanin in his first public comments about the quarantine.
“It's necessary to undertake every measure required in this situation, even if they may look excessive for Russia today,” he said.
Analysts said the disjointed and often contradictory messaging from government sources on the coronavirus pandemic has been uncharacteristic for a typically unified front.
“I think the problem is that within the Kremlin, in a way, they have gotten so used to the idea that in some ways they can define the narrative and the narrative will shape reality,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London. “Of course, this is a different way around. This is actually a reality that has to shape the narrative.”
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In a poll conducted earlier this month by the independent Levada Center, just 16 percent of Russian respondents said they “fully” trusted the country’s official coronavirus data. Even Sobyanin doesn’t trust it; he told Putin in a televised meeting that the number of actual cases is likely “significantly” higher because of insufficient testing.
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Roughly two-thirds of Russia’s confirmed coronavirus cases are in Moscow, so Sobyanin, a technocrat who was tapped to head Russia’s coronavirus task force, has taken on the “bad cop” burden for Putin, Galeotti said. Tatiana Stanovaya, head of the R. Politik think tank, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Sobyanin “has turned out to be Russia’s biggest European” by imposing strict measures similar to those in France, Italy and Spain.
Even Mishustin has seemingly been following Sobyanin’s lead. A pattern has emerged in the past week of Sobyanin first announcing restrictions for Moscow before Mishustin then applies them to the rest of the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a video conference with leaders from the Group of 20 to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impacts, at his residence outside Moscow, March 26, 2020. (Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin/REUTERS)
But while Putin has been largely — and conspicuously — silent, analysts said there is little doubt that he has had the final say behind the scenes. If the coronavirus pandemic turns catastrophic in Russia, Putin will not be able to shift blame solely to Sobyanin, Carnegie’s Kolesnikov said, pointing to Putin’s already slumping approval ratings. A March poll by the Levada Center put his latest rating at 63 percent, nearing his 2013 low of 61 percent.
“Everyone understands that this is the same power,” Kolesnikov said. “I think that an average Russian citizen doesn’t separate Putin from Mishustin or Mishustin from Sobyanin. Nevertheless, Putin is the main responsible person.”
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2020-03-30 16:28:44Z
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