Is Putin Failing To Deal With The Coronavirus Pandemic?

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, April 16, 2020. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters

Mark Galeotti, World Politics Review: Putin is failing to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, and Russians know it

Russia's COVID-19 story is one of paradoxes. Despite an underfunded public health system, new cases have plateaued since mid-May, and the country has not seen the explosion in deaths from the coronavirus that some experts predicted.

Yet President Vladimir Putin's approval ratings have been sinking. Why? Russians seem to realize that they have so far avoided the worst in spite of Putin's government, not because of it.

As of June 8, the official total of infections was just over 450,000 — the third-highest count in the world after the United States and Brazil — but Russian officials say that is because of their high rate of testing.

The death toll was just under 6,000, which is likely to be an undercount — not so much because of any nefarious Kremlin plot, but rather because of Russia's convention for counting deaths. It excludes those who may have had the virus but did not die directly of it. There is also a customary reluctance within the hierarchy to report bad news up the chain of command.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The above commentary is (from someone whose nationality is Russian) a reflection on the cultural differences between the East and West. In the West the expectation is that the government will rush in to help you in the event of an emergency .... and they usually fail. In Russia, there is no expectation that the government will rush in to help you in the event of an emergency, because everyone knows that it will fail. Bottom line. The pandemic is not going to impact Putin's poll numbers.