Quarantine and dozens of tests for all visitors: how the Kremlin takes care of Putin's health

• Neither the invasion of Ukraine, nor the four coronavirus vaccinations, nor the easing of the pandemic has lifted the quarantine for those who come into contact with Vladimir Putin. How the health of the Russian president is protected, how the quarantine testing system works, and how many millions it costs the Russian budget, reports with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

Pilots and doctors are regularly kept in isolation. To gain access to the “clean zone,” hundreds of people take PCR tests four times and check their coronavirus antibodies twice. They also take additional tests - for influenza, staphylococcus and worms.

“When it was my turn, he [Putin] and I said hello. I conveyed to him congratulations from the veterans and leadership of our republic. He smiled and shook my hand. The president left an indelible impression on himself,” is how General Akhat Yulashev from Kazan describes his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Yulashev shook hands with the Russian president at a parade on Red Square on May 9, 2022, at the height of Russia’s war with Ukraine. For this meeting, the 94-year-old man spent two weeks in quarantine.

The general, a veteran not of the Great Patriotic War, but of the Afghan War, arrived in Moscow on April 23. They met him “with all honors and put him up in a luxurious Moscow hotel,” he told local media after his return, without hiding the fact that “he was fully supported in quarantine.”

General Yulashev was one of approximately 400 people who were quarantined in Moscow from May 24 to May 9 to shake hands or simply approach Vladimir Putin.

True, they lived, apparently, well: the quarantine took place in two hotels in the center of the capital - the five-star Golden Ring and the four-star President Hotel.

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During the year, the Russian president received as many as four doses of the coronavirus vaccine and started a war with Ukraine, but neither the vaccination nor the emergency situation fundamentally changed the situation: he began to move from residence to residence more often, and all service personnel and all those in contact with him continue to sit in quarantine, but now in different parts of Russia.

According to open data, the Kremlin structures spent more than $25 million on this, and observators received at least $30 million in subsidies.

“Such measures are unprecedented, but it is impossible to conclude from them whether the president has health problems; rather, it is reinsurance or “star fever,” said Israeli anesthesiologist Mikhail Fremderman, who worked in Russia until 2014.

Konstantin Balonov, head of the department of anesthesiology and intensive care at the Tufts Medical Center clinic in the USA and who personally treated severe patients with coronavirus on ventilators, believes that such quarantine measures are as irrational as pathological hatred of “rebellious” people like Ukraine, oppositionists Alexei Navalny or the Dozhd TV channel (included in the Russian Federation in the register of media “foreign agents”).

He believes that doctors in the Kremlin are simply afraid of possible reprisals and are playing it safe: “Sitting in quarantine and undergoing numerous tests - from a medical point of view, this is paranoia or real fear. “The Doctors’ Plot” could very quickly become a new reality.”

Observation for shaking hands with the president

99-year-old Colonel Nikolai Kozlov from Korolev near Moscow took Berlin in 1945 and signed on the walls of the Reichstag. He is invited to the parade every year.

“I was happy to learn that these days he is undergoing a special two-week quarantine in a sanatorium - he is in isolation from any contact, so that nothing interferes with the well-being of those who will be next to him on the podium on Red Square,” the deputy wrote in April Moscow Regional Duma Sergei Kerselyan.

Next to Kozlov in the first row of the central podium were the President and the Minister of Defense. “Through one person, Shoigu, and after two, in my opinion, Putin,” the veteran recalls. “He [Putin] and I briefly exchanged congratulations and asked about his health.” They also shook hands: “I congratulated, passed, and wished everyone [health].”

He does not see anything unusual in quarantine: this was the case last year and before the meeting with Putin on June 22.

In a military sanatorium near Moscow, he said, this year there were only five veterans of the Great Patriotic War, each with an accompanying person. “We rested for two weeks, walked in the forest, the food was normal. From there we immediately went to the parade,” he recalls. Kozlov was in quarantine with his daughter, but she was not on the podium next to her father.

In total, 590 veterans of the Great Patriotic War were invited to the stands of Red Square. They were met and accompanied by volunteers selected through a competition. Not everyone was in quarantine; veterans and volunteers from the regions mostly came to Moscow on May 7 or 8.

The situation was different for such veterans as Yulashev and Kozlov: they received a ticket to the central tribune, where the presidential administration distributed seats with veteran organizations and the Ministry of Defense. Those in the front row shook hands with Putin.

How many people were quarantined in the Kremlin before the parade, the authorities did not report. However, some calculations can be made from the register of government contracts.

In addition to shaking hands with the guests of the central stand, Putin had other close contacts on May 9. He laid flowers at the monument to the Unknown Soldier and marched in the column of the “Immortal Regiment” action.

Nikolai Kozlov and other quarantined veterans took part in laying wreaths after the parade along with Putin. After that, they went to a reception at the Grand Kremlin Palace. There Putin was already sitting at a distance, “a little at the end” of the hall. And everything was “quick and short”: “I said hello, congratulated, raised a glass to everyone. We drank, then he left, and the banquet continued,” Kozlov said.

With him at the 25th table was the Moscow region governor Andrey Vorobyov. The official and other top officials, judging by their previous summons, were not in quarantine. Perhaps that is why the president kept his distance.

In previous years, after the parade, Putin publicly personally congratulated the veterans in the Kremlin and raised a toast. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this tradition has been interrupted; at the end of April, the Kremlin press service told RIA Novosti that there would be no reception.

According to the government procurement website, a gala reception on behalf of Putin was still planned for May 9. On May 5, the UDP ordered 500 invitation forms, 450 books with the menu and program of the concert, and 70 table signs. According to the standards of ensuring the “sanitary and epidemiological well-being” of the president, this event, for close communication with guests, also had to be preceded by quarantine.

From quarantine to the “clean zone”

People around Putin are not only in quarantine, but also undergoing various tests. These laboratory tests “for sanitary and epidemiological” purposes are also purchased by the Presidential Administration.

Some contracts disclose a complex clearance procedure “before starting work in the clean area.” The rules appeared in 2021.

To go into quarantine at all, you need to take a blood test for antibodies to coronavirus two days in advance. While in quarantine, you will have to take PCR tests four times within 12 days, and on the twelfth day you will have to test blood again for antibodies.

If a person did not have IGM antibodies, which indicate that he was sick, then after 14 days of isolation he received access to the “clean zone” - that is, to the president.

Later, a condition was added to the contract that, at the request of the UDP, biomaterial can be taken from people in quarantine for other tests. This happened after Putin's vaccination.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Presidential Administration and his structures have ordered tests of employees and other persons, including those under “quarantine” contracts, for about $3,5 million from Kremlin clinics in Moscow.

At the request of the UDP, about 2021 people have been tested since 1500 - some were swabbed not only for coronavirus, but also for ARVI, influenza and staphylococcus, and blood for biomarkers. They also tested feces - but not for coronavirus, but for helminth eggs.

The fact that officials close to the president must take stool tests was reported in February 2022, citing anonymous sources, by the Baza telegram channel, which claimed that officials had to take these tests “several times a week.”

At the same time, for example, for employees of the Kremlevsky food plant, who do not feed the president and work not in the Kremlin, but in the buildings of the Presidential Administration on Old Square in Moscow, the State Duma, the Federation Council, the Government House and the Supreme Court, only swabs were enough for PCR test.

The flight squad "Russia" UDP, whose crews fly with Putin, spent the most on tests - more than $2 million. Since June 2021, pilots and flight attendants began to undergo not only PCR tests, but all types of tests for COVID-19. Every month they passed up to 2 thousand urgent PCR tests and up to 600 antibody tests. And also fifty blood tests for biomarkers and 100-200 stool tests to detect coronavirus.

The same scheme still works today. In May 2022 alone, the flight squad paid for 1376 swabs and 98 stool samples for coronavirus, as well as 447 blood tests for antibodies and 32 for biomarkers. At the same time, they continue to be quarantined en masse in sanatoriums near Moscow and other resorts.

“There is no medical aspect to testing stool for coronavirus. This is an attempt to duplicate a regular test for reinsurance purposes, since any smear may turn out to be uninformative,” said a Russian infectious disease doctor who treated Covid patients in the “red zone.” He requested anonymity because he is not authorized to comment on this topic. He is not aware of any cases of coronavirus infection through the fecal-oral route; other experts have also spoken about this.

Tests for other infections and a sharp reduction in contacts, according to the same interlocutor, are sometimes used for seriously ill patients - for example, before operations in oncohematology, in order to exclude any side effects. But the time of such measures is limited, they do not last for years, and usually the person does not live in sterile conditions. “Not all actions of officials are justified from a scientific point of view; many want to please their superiors, to show that they have thought through everything,” says the doctor.

The Baza Telegram channel wrote that many Kremlin employees were forced to spend almost the entire year in quarantine, and some employees of the Presidential Administration and the Federal Security Service “served” in single rooms for more than 2021 days in 150 - because of which the staff began to have problems in their families. Contracts for quarantine accommodation of such persons are usually classified. But government procurement shows a picture similar to that of pilots.

Quarantine for them in a dozen Kremlin sanatoriums near the presidential residences in the Moscow region, Sochi and Valdai has already cost more than $2020 million since the start of the pandemic in 20, and the amount of all contracts is approaching $34 million. Some of these sanatoriums have been completely turned into observatories and closed for vacationers.

At the same time, in 2020 alone, they received subsidies from the UDP under anti-covid measures totaling about $30 million. In 2021, the authorities classified the register of new subsidies.

Get ahead of Putin

In March 2021, Putin, according to his press secretary Dmitry Peskov, was vaccinated against coronavirus for the first time. Many doubted the fact that the president was vaccinated: it was not shown on TV and they did not even name the vaccine that was injected into the head of the Russian state. Only later did it become known that it was about Sputnik.

Judging by government procurement, after being vaccinated, Putin began to actively move around the country - to holidays, forums and from residence to residence, where he received heads of other states.

However, the vaccination did not prevent quarantine: before each meeting, the staff, apparently preparing meetings and close contact with Putin, as well as doctors, were in quarantine, the BBC found out based on public procurement data.

Medical landing on Valdai

“Not far from the ancient Russian city of Valdai, on a peninsula surrounded by the purest Lake Uzhin, rises a wooded hill, popularly called “Mermaid Mountain” from time immemorial. The place is famous for its beauty and strength, its proximity to the ancient Iversky Monastery and the location of the health complex of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation,” this is how the Valdai holiday home in the Novgorod region advertises itself on its website.

The site is silent about the fact that Vladimir Putin’s residence is located nearby. But those who want to relax under the “Mermaid Mountain” are warned: “Dear guests, we inform you that the Valdai Holiday House will be closed for receiving guests from November 6, 2020 for an indefinite time.”

From the very beginning of the pandemic, the Central Clinical Hospital (CCH) of the Presidential Administration, where Vladimir Putin is being treated, has been sending his doctors there. Judging by the paid bills, there is almost always from one to four doctors there, for whom rooms and separate cottages are rented in a closed rest house.

Doctors have been accompanying Putin to Valdai since 2020. During the year, the hospital sent one to four of its employees (most often two of them) on business trips for a period of 10 to 15 days six times. They lived in separate cottages at the same price of about $100 per day. During the year, the hospital spent $15 on their accommodation.

Travel increased in 2021, with doctors visiting for periods ranging from one to 26 days. The hospital rented cottages for them 18 times for $33.

In 2022, doctors visited Putin in Valdai at least nine times - from January 1 to April 15, one or two employees of the Kremlin hospital were there every day. The maximum travel period for one physician lasted 34 days. At the moment, the hospital has paid for the rental of cottages in Valdai until mid-April, paying $15000.

In April, the Proekt publication (banned by Russian authorities) published an investigation, suggesting that Putin has serious health problems. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied this.

The Project, based on government procurement data, said that from 2016 to 2020, Putin was accompanied by a team of doctors on numerous trips to Sochi, where one of the presidential residences is located. Most often, two otolaryngologists and a surgeon specializing in thyroid cancer flew with him.

Business trips of Kremlin doctors to Sochi continue to this day - a new contract for their accommodation in the Rus sanatorium was signed the other day.

During the pandemic and the war year of 2022, the capital's Central Clinical Hospital doctors, as the BBC found out, began to sit in quarantine in Moscow - including before important events and rare public events of Vladimir Putin
For example, shortly before Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in February, the Central Clinical Hospital paid for 20 rooms for its employees in the Moscow Arbat Hotel (subordinate to the President Hotel of the Presidential Administration). 20 Moscow doctors moved to the hotel on February 2. Of these, 16 people lived there for 15 days, three lived there for two days less, and one lived there for only a week.

Sometimes the hospital accommodated only one doctor in the four-star President Hotel - for periods of 2, 9 and 14 days. How this specialist differed from other colleagues is unknown; his name is hidden in the documents published on the government procurement website.

In total, the hospital has spent about $2020 since 290 on the accommodation of doctors in these two hotels.

Under the terms of the contracts, testing for coronavirus and three meals a day for its employees were most often provided by the Central Clinical Hospital itself. Perhaps the doctors were taken to work and back, and the hotel served as an observatory for them.

Councils for forums

Even during a pandemic, there is one type of public event that Putin rarely misses: various forums. For him, this is an opportunity to convey his point of view to business and investors.

In the military year of 2022, for example, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he talked for a long time in front of Russian businessmen and rare foreign guests about how the sanctions and decisions of the European and American authorities plunged the Western world into a severe crisis.

Putin, long before the pandemic, was accompanied to all forums by teams of doctors, including infectious disease specialists and specialists of various profiles.

The Eastern Economic Forum, which takes place in Vladivostok, is especially indicative. Doctors from the Central Clinical Hospital are sent there across the country - they arrive a week before Putin’s arrival and leave Vladivostok after his return to Moscow.

In 2021, Putin arrived in Vladivostok on September 1, held working meetings, and on September 3 participated in the WEF plenary meeting on the campus of Far Eastern University on Russky Island.

A week before the president’s arrival, the Central Clinical Hospital doctors settled in a suite at the Astoria Hotel in Vladivostok ($10) and in a university hotel on Russky Island ($0000), where the forum is taking place.

In 2019, Boris Gorshenin, deputy chief physician of the Central Clinical Hospital, and seven other doctors ($5500) lived on Russky Island during the EEF.

Powerful teams of specialists from the Central Design Bureau accompanied Putin to the Arctic Forum. In 2017 it was held in Arkhangelsk. The President spoke there on 30 March.

From March 27 to March 31, cardiologist Sergei Vaniev, chief infectious disease specialist of the Presidential Administration Georgy Sapronov (there was no pandemic then), professor-neurologist Vladimir Shmyrev and otolaryngologist-phoniatrist Natalya Chuchueva, a specialist in the treatment of voice disorders, diagnosis of larynx pathologies, lived in the hostel of the Northern Arctic University from March XNUMX to XNUMX and other ENT organs.

The team also included two therapists - Yuri Lukin and Vladimir Shpinchevsky, as well as head nurse Irina Arseeva, paramedic of the emergency department of the Central Clinical Hospital Oleg Aleshin and some other doctors.

In 2019, the Arctic Forum was held in St. Petersburg in April. Boris Gorshenin arrived there a week before Putin's arrival in St. Petersburg. Two days before the presidential visit, he was joined by the head of the neurological center Sergey Arkhipov, the same otolaryngologist-phoniatrist Natalya Chuchueva, infectious disease specialist Andrey Devyatkin, chief pulmonologist of the Presidential Administration Svetlana Evdokimova, chief cardiologist of the UDP Nikita Lomakin and another hospital employee.

Two months later, Putin returned to St. Petersburg to speak at SPIEF on June 7. From June 3 to 9, Boris Gorshenin was again on duty in St. Petersburg. The Central Clinical Hospital paid $6300 for his hotel room.

There is no open data on hotel rentals for his subordinates on the government procurement website. But the presidential doctors in St. Petersburg could use the infrastructure of Putin’s residence, the Konstantinovsky Palace. In addition, St. Petersburg has its own Kremlin doctors - they work in the consultative and diagnostic center of the presidential administration.

In 2017, the president was in St. Petersburg during the SPIEF from June 1 to 3. From May 31 to June 3, the same therapist Vladimir Shpinchevsky, ambulance doctor Konstantin Poslushaev and two nurses were in the city. The hotel cost the Central Clinical Hospital $560.

Comparing these data, we can conclude that Putin’s medical teams were sometimes on duty at the president’s places of stay “according to protocol,” and during some of his visits they seriously feared for Putin’s health and strengthened their staff.

There is no data yet on which doctors were on duty at SPIEF in June of this year - rental contracts for housing for seconded employees of the Presidential Administration structure are published retroactively.

Doctor Mikhail Fremderman from Israel's TLV Medical Center, who was asked by the BBC to evaluate the Russian president's health measures, says that in Israel, for example, quarantine measures are the same for citizens, including the prime minister, and during elections, which are now taking place amid an increase in the incidence of coronavirus , all politicians went to talk to the people.

According to him, the head of government was accompanied by medical specialists whom he trusts, but this concerned long-distance foreign trips.

In the USA, even for those sick with coronavirus, a 5-day quarantine is provided, after which, if there is no temperature, you can go to work, but do not take off your mask for the next 5 days, said Konstantin Balonov from the USA. According to the doctor, quarantine to prevent infection, especially after vaccination, is not necessary; it is enough to wear a mask. He has also never heard of anyone in America taking stool tests for COVID-19 and other tests other than PCR or “rapid” antigen tests. Most of the biomarkers that are specified in research contracts are not specific to the coronavirus and may be elevated in many infectious and inflammatory processes, even in arthritis.

The staff of the US White House and journalists in it do not have accredited quarantine, Balonov was confirmed, according to him, by a source familiar with the protocols of the White House. Antigen tests were done before press conferences during the pandemic, and journalists wore masks during conferences. At that time, these were the standard rules for being in public places. At the same time, a family doctor accompanies the President of the United States on trips, who has complete information about his health in case of need and can coordinate assistance on the spot.

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According to Dr. Balonov, increased safety measures may be used for patients with reduced immunity - for example, due to chemotherapy. But even in this case, quarantine and numerous tests are clearly an excessive measure. In addition, Putin in the video does not give the impression of a seriously ill person with immunosuppression, the doctor says.
Mikhail Fremderman listed several hypotheses regarding the “Kremlin quarantine.” Perhaps this is simply a waste of budget money and the result of the diligence of his subordinates, he believes.

There is, according to the doctor, another option: “With some degree of probability, this may indicate Putin’s suspiciousness and phobias, for example, fear of biological weapons. He also spoke about US biological laboratories in Ukraine. And he most likely receives information about the need for certain tests or quarantine from the folders that are brought to him.”

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