Russia’s Pandemic/Political Update: Every Sandpiper Praises its Swamp
In the past four weeks, Russia’s daily average registered virus cases gradually descended from around 10K to around 9K, and were getting closer to 8K quite often in recent days. Overall, the trend was downward so far, albeit decelerating. The country’s epidemiological picture looked more favorable than in many European countries. However, it is yet to be seen whether Russia will be affected by the third phase of the pandemic and penetration of new strains of the virus, but so far, things were looking up despite slow vaccination. The decline in incidence rate may be broken due to various reasons, such as Russia gradually resuming flights to various countries and more Russians started traveling. In this regard, it looks good that the European Union, where the number of daily infections is on the rise, remains mostly closed for the Russian visitors (apart from few exemptions).
Politically, Russia has also moved away from the European Union and the West in general. That was also confirmed by the “unsuccessful” visit to Moscow by Josep Borrell in February and recent comments made by Joe Biden on Mr. Putin’s personality. Russian and the Western leaders will continue to speak different languages, and in the years to come, there is no possibility to change it in principle. Hence, putting relations under a kind of mutual lockdown in order not to make more mistakes, and suppress the virus of mutual mistrust and misunderstanding seems not the worst option on the table.
Any positive change is unlikely and the precipice between Russia and the West will remain deep and can only deepen, and it not due to a conflict between the Russian and Western ruling elites, it is about the majority of Russian population that will keep “praising its own swamp” and defy foreign mentoring.
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