Vladimir Putin is being protected from coronavirus around the clock with all of his staff undergoing mandatory testing, it emerged today.
The Kremlin said that all workers involved in the presidents’ events schedule were being tested for the disease.
Russia has recorded 147 cases of coronavirus so far and the authorities have temporarily barred foreigners from entering the country in an effort to prevent it spreading further.
Russian president Vladimir Putin (pictured) is being protected from coronavirus around the clock with all staff tested for coronavirus, said the Kremlin today
Medical staff wearing protective suits riding down an escalator at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport yesterday
‘Everything needed to protect the president from viruses and other illnesses is being done around the clock,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
‘The president’s work schedule is public and the best proof of the state of his health.’
Peskov has previously declined to say whether Putin has been tested for coronavirus, but has said that the president’s medical care is of an exceptionally high level.
Putin on Wednesday was visiting Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Journalists travelling with Putin on the trip were tested beforehand to prove they were not carriers of the virus.
The Kremlin has also told journalists to stay away if they feel unwell.
Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said on Wednesday that he’d been tested for coronavirus himself along with all high-ranking Kremlin officials.
Igor Nikulin, a microbiologist who allegedly worked at the UN, made the comments about Britain’s involvement in coronavirus on Russian state-backed TV
The Big Game Russian roundtable TV discussion on COVID-19 on the state-backed Channel 1 in which it was claimed Britain was involved in beginning the spread of the virus
It comes as Russian media deployed a ‘significant disinformation campaign’ against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus, generate panic and sow distrust, it was claimed.
According to a European Union document, the Russian campaign, pushing fake news online in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French, uses contradictory, confusing and malicious reports to make it harder for the EU to communicate its response to the pandemic.
A specialist EU database has recorded almost 80 cases of disinformation about coronavirus since January 22, it said.
The EU document cited examples from Lithuania to Ukraine and said that on social media, Russian state-funded, Spanish-language RT Spanish was the 12th most popular news source on coronavirus between January and mid-March, based on the amount of news shared on social media.
Yesterday it emerged that Kremlin-backed media has broadcast propaganda which blamed Britain for the outbreak and claimed COVID-19 was created as a tool to benefit of the UK.
Igor Nikulin, who claimed to be a microbiologist, said on Russia’s Channel 1 he was ‘certain’ the coronavirus was a ‘man-made disease’.
The disease was also linked to the Skripal Novichok scandal in which the Salisbury government laboratory at Porton Down was accused by Russian media of using the nerve agent on former Russian military intelligence Sergei Skripal in March 2018.
In fresh allegations made this week, the programme claimed the British ‘smeared something in Wuhan’ in the same way that they ‘smear[ed] nerve agent on Skripal’s door handle’.
The Kremlin denied the allegations made in the EU report today, saying they were unfounded and lacked common sense.
‘A significant disinformation campaign by Russian state media and pro-Kremlin outlets regarding COVID-19 is ongoing,’ said the nine-page internal document, dated March 16, using the name of the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus.
‘The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries…in line with the Kremlin’s broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies,’ the document produced by the EU’s foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, said.
A woman with her child wearing medical masks walking inside the Komsomolskaya Metro station in Moscow yesterday
Peskov pointed to what he said was the lack in the EU document of a specific example or link to a specific media outlet.
‘We’re talking again about some unfounded allegations which in the current situation are probably the result of an anti-Russian obsession,’ said Peskov.
The EEAS declined to comment directly on the report.
The European Commission said it was in contact with Google , Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft .
An EU spokesman accused Moscow of ‘playing with people’s lives’ and appealed to EU citizens to ‘be very careful’ and only use news sources they trust.
The EU and NATO have accused Russia of covert action, including disinformation, to try to destabilise the West by exploiting divisions in society.
The construction site of a new infectious hospital on the outskirts of Moscow as an additional measure to help try and prevent the spread of coronavirus
Supermarket shelves today were nearly empty as Russians are hoarding goods following the coronavirus outbreak
Russia denies any such tactics, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused foreign foes of targeting Russia by spreading fake news about coronavirus to whip up panic.
Russian media in Europe have not been successful in reaching the broader public, but provide a platform for anti-EU populists and polarise debate, analysis by EU and non-governmental groups has shown.
The EEAS report cited riots at the end of February in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic now seeking to join the EU and NATO, as an example of the consequences of such disinformation.
It said a fake letter purporting to be from the Ukrainian health ministry falsely stated here were five coronavirus cases in the country. Ukrainian authorities say the letter was created outside Ukraine, the EU report said.
‘Pro-Kremlin disinformation messages advance a narrative that coronavirus is a human creation, weaponised by the West,’ said the report, first cited by the Financial Times.
It quoted fake news created by Russia in Italy, the second-most heavily affected country in the world, that health systems would be unable to cope and doctors would choose who lived or died because of a lack of beds.
The EEAS has also shared information with Slovakia over the spread of fake news accusing the country’s prime minister, Peter Pellegrini, of being infected with the virus and saying he may have passed on the infection to others at recent summits.
EU leaders have been conferring by video-conferences since early March.
President Vladimir Putin yesterday claimed the coronavirus was ‘under control’ in Russia and said outbreaks of infection had been contained as the country closed its borders to foreigners.