Putin Still on COVID-19 High Alert, Staff 'Perplexed:' Ex-FSO Officer

Vladimir Putin has nonetheless been isolating himself and making employees quarantine, an ex-FSO officer says.
“Now we have a self-isolating President,” stated the officer, who defected in October.
In a File Heart interview, he recounted anecdotes from 13 years working in Putin’s safety element.

Russian President Vladimir Putin remains to be on excessive alert for COVID-19 and has been forcing employees to quarantine, based on a former officer who labored along with his safety element for over a decade.

The Russian chief has been preserving himself on lockdown mode till no less than late 2022, Gleb Karakulov, a former captain within the Presidential Communications Directorate of the Federal Guard Service, instructed the File Heart for Investigative Journalism.

“We nonetheless have a self-isolating President,” Karakulov stated, per the File Heart. “Now we have to watch a strict quarantine for 2 weeks earlier than any occasion, even these lasting 15 to twenty minutes.”

Karakulov was answerable for encrypting Putin’s communications, and traveled with him on greater than 180 abroad enterprise journeys over 13 years, he instructed the File Heart. He escaped in October whereas accompanying Putin on a visit to Kazakhstan, and moved to Turkey along with his household — a uncommon case of a high-ranking intelligence officer defecting from the Russian authorities.

The previous FSO officer stated Putin solely allowed employees members to work in the identical room as him after a two-week quarantine interval, per the File Heart.

“There’s a pool of staff who’ve been cleared, who underwent this two-week quarantine,” Karakulov stated.

He added that when he left, Putin’s employees had been already changing into confused by the president’s insistence on preserving to previous pandemic restrictions.

“Everyone seems to be a bit perplexed as to why that is nonetheless occurring. As a result of everybody has been pressured to get vaccinated,” Karakulov stated.

Karakulov stated that he and his colleagues needed to take COVID assessments a number of instances a day, undergo well being screenings, and monitor their well being intently.

“I don’t know why; he is in all probability simply frightened about his well being,” Karakulov additionally stated.

Whereas he guessed that Putin might undergo from well being issues, Karakulov stated he did not know that for certain.

“He’s in higher well being than many different individuals his age,” Karakulov instructed the File Heart.

The Russian president, who’s 70, solely canceled two journeys for well being causes throughout Karakulov’s 13-year stint working with the presidential element, the previous FSO officer stated.

However in 2020 — because the COVID-19 pandemic unfold — Putin shut himself away in a bunker and made at most three journeys that 12 months, Karakulov stated. The officer’s account helps The Guardian’s 2021 reporting on Putin. In accordance with The Guardian, the Russian chief was on the time residing alone in a residence within the resort metropolis of Sochi, and officers needed to quarantine for 2 weeks earlier than seeing him.

Karakulov’s description of Putin’s warning about COVID-19 additionally corroborates a report by The New York Occasions in 2022. Putin is thought to typically use an absurdly lengthy assembly desk, and The Occasions reported that that is an anti-COVID measure used when Putin meets with worldwide officers.

It is unclear whether or not Putin remains to be abiding by the identical slate of pandemic restrictions. When he met with Chinese language chief Xi Jinping in Russia, the pair shook palms and had been seen standing shut to one another. He was additionally not too long ago photographed assembly and shaking palms with Russian officers.