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All I can say is, that happened quickly.
The day after President Vladimir Putin told Russians that the next few weeks will be "decisive" in the battle with coronavirus, the country has posted a new daily record rise in infections, with 2,774 new cases discovered.
Over two-thirds (1,949) were found in Moscow and its surrounding region, with others dotted around the country. The national total now stands at 21,102.
Worryingly, the remote northern Komi Republic is Russia's fourth most affected region overall. The resource-rich territory recorded 97 fresh Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing its tally to 305, with three dead.
Twenty-two new deaths have been announced, 18 of them in the Moscow area, the youngest a 29-year-old girl who had Down Syndrome. The nationwide toll is 170, with 119 of the deceased from the capital and its environs. Saint Petersburg has recorded four fatal cases.
On Monday, during a meeting with officials, via video link, Putin said Russia's situation was "changing every day and unfortunately not for the better." He warned of the need to prepare for "complex and extraordinary" circumstances as infections spread.
"We have a lot of problems," the President said. "We don't have anything special to brag about, and we certainly must not relax." Putin added that he was prepared to call in the military to help stretched medical services, if needed. Meanwhile, Tatiana Golikova, the deputy prime minister in charge of handling the national coronavirus response, said it was “unpleasant” to see the daily figures rise.
Russia’s coronavirus outbreak is deteriorating and its new cases are getting more severe, President Vladimir Putin warned Monday as the country reported its highest day-to-day spike in infections to date.
Russia has reported 18,328 overall coronavirus cases and 148 total deaths, making it the world’s 15th most-affected country as of Monday.
“We see that the situation is changing almost daily and, unfortunately, not for the better,” Putin said at a video conference with health officials.
“The number of people who are getting sick is increasing, with more cases of severe illness,” he told three federal officials and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who is overseeing Russia’s coronavirus task force.
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) --Vladimir Putin’s deal with OPEC to cut oil output and boost prices three years ago was a triumph for the Russian leader, bolstering his clout on the global stage. But now he’s had to make stinging concessions after U.S. President Donald Trump stepped in to end a price war.
Amid relief in Moscow at the unprecedented deal with Saudi Arabia and other major producers to slash oil output, the accord marks a painful setback for Russia, said two people close to the Kremlin.
Putin had catapulted Russia into a dominant role in global energy politics and drove a wedge between the U.S. and its Saudi ally, as the two marshaled producers to limit supplies. But it’s now clear he overplayed his hand when he refused to meet Saudi demands to double output cuts just five weeks ago. OPEC’s biggest producer cranked up output in a price war that crashed the market just as the spread of coronavirus demolished demand.
With markets collapsing, Putin agreed to cut more than 2.5 million barrels a day of crude from the 11 million of combined crude and condensate Russia pumps each day, more than four times the reduction that he turned down in early March and more than what Saudi Arabia is obliged to cut from its output level last month. Meanwhile, hopes that the U.S. would formally commit to its own curbs have evaporated, even as Trump takes credit for bringing about the new deal.
The ill-fated decision to face off against Saudi Arabia in early March was “a strategic mistake and now we’re paying the price, a much higher price than we could have paid,” said Andrey Kortunov, director of the Kremlin-founded Russian International Affairs Council. “This looks like a victory for the U.S., and Russia ends up a bigger loser than Saudi Arabia.”
If the cuts are achieved, Russia’s output for the next two months will drop to the annual average last seen in 2003, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the Russian Energy Ministry and BP Plc’s Statistical Review. Russia agreed to continue smaller cuts until May 2022, though it did manage to hold onto one concession by keeping condensate, a light fuel of which it is a major producer, out of the quotas.
But Russia completely failed to anticipate the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the world economy when it walked away from the agreement with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other big producers known as OPEC+, said a senior Russian official. Holding that alliance together would have prevented the collapse in prices to an almost two-decade low that followed. Now, the Kremlin has had to negotiate a new arrangement under highly unfavorable terms, he said.
The decision to compromise over the cuts to crude output is painful for Putin’s political image, but it’s essential as a step toward overcoming the crisis, said another person close to the Kremlin. The final agreement, which foresees a gradual lifting of the supply restrictions starting from July, was coordinated with all major Russian oil companies and had Putin’s personal stamp of approval. Even symbolic U.S. participation is seen as an important milestone.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, defended the new deal Friday. “There are no losers, there are only winners,” he told reporters on a conference call. The main state TV news program hailed the pact as an “unconditional success” on Sunday.
Economic Pain. But the deal marks a reversal in Putin’s push to restore Russia’s global influence, especially in the Middle East, where he’s become a key player with interventions in places like Libya and Syria. Just how big a setback it is will be determined by whether the new deal is enough to reverse the market rout and limit the economic pain for the Kremlin.
While Russian officials had put on a brave face in recent weeks as oil prices plunged, dragging the ruble sharply lower and forcing the central bank to sell dollars to steady the market, the Kremlin had become alarmed at the potential economic damage.
“Russia was seriously concerned about the Urals drop, in early April the price fell to almost $10 per barrel,” said Dmitry Marinchenko, senior director at Fitch Ratings, referring to Russia’s main export blend. “It’s difficult to imagine how the Russian budget would cope with a situation when the oil industry doesn’t bring any revenues at all.”
Lukoil PJSC’s billionaire shareholder Leonid Fedun likened the deal to the “humiliating and difficult” pact the Bolsheviks signed in 1918 to end Russia’s participation in World War I. Still, he told the RBC news group the pact will save the country’s oil industry from a production collapse of as much as 50% if low prices forced a “blanket” shuttering of wells.
Role Reversal. Moscow’s climbdown marks a dramatic role reversal. Due to climate and geography, Saudi Arabia can turn the taps on and off much more easily than Russia and, until now, Russia had dawdled on cuts, avoiding full compliance while Saudi Arabia bore the brunt of the output curbs to maintain market stability.
To meet the new conditions, Russian producers may have to go beyond cutting flows from their existing high-cost, fully taxed fields and review plans for new projects, said Darya Kozlova, head of oil and gas regulation at Moscow-based Vygon Consulting. That could have implications for years to come.
Russia may also have to provide cheaper supplies to traditional buyers in Europe to woo them back after Saudi Arabia offered deep discounts during their five-week standoff.
“This is Russia’s biggest defeat since the start of the 2000s,” said Dmitry Perevalov, an independent oil trader and former industry executive. “We’ve lost our markets and it won’t be easy to get them back.”
Russia’s deepening economic crisis is on the verge of spilling into some of the most remittance-dependent economies in the world.
Migrant workers from the former-Soviet Union send $13 billion home each year from Russia, where they are allowed to work visa-free. But now that money is starting to dry up due to lockdowns in Moscow and St. Petersburg that have halted construction projects and sapped demand for taxis.
Total remittances from Russia could drop by more than 30%-40% this year, according to Eldar Vakhitov, an emerging-market analyst at M&G Investments in London. The central bank says the self-isolation measure could knock 1.5%-2% off economic growth in 2020 but a worst-case scenario being discussed by the Russian government last month put the potential drop at 5%-10%.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-14/russia-s-coming-crisis-puts-13-billion-of-remittances-at-risk
A lack of aid for Moscow’s small and medium businesses hit by the coronavirus lockdown will lead to mass starvation and widespread protests, opposition lawmakers have reportedly warned Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
“Failure to take [support] measures in the coming months may lead to mass starvation,” the Communist Party — the Moscow City Duma’s second-largest faction — told Sobyanin in a letter, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday.
“In the event of spontaneous unsanctioned protests attended by several thousand residents, all responsibility will fall on Moscow’s executive authority,” party leader Nikolai Zubrilin reportedly warned Sobyanin.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/04/14/there-will-be-mass-starvation-moscow-opposition-warns-mayor-as-coronavirus-slams-economy-a69975
https://meduza.io/en/news/2020/04/14/moscow-health-department-warns-that-covid-19-hospital-beds-may-soon-run-out
Over the weekend, Moscow officials closed the central outpatient clinic for the Mitino District, where local residents now fear a new outbreak of coronavirus. Outpatient Clinic № 180 is now being decontaminated from top to bottom and the facility’s chief physician was placed on a ventilator on Saturday. Staff will be allowed to return to work only after mass testing. This is the first time Moscow has had to close an entire clinic because of the coronavirus epidemic. Elsewhere in the city, admission and hospitalization at the Blokhin Oncology Center are still suspended because of concerns about COVID-19’s spread.
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