In the midst of the Ukrainian crisis, Vladimir Putin alone at his table and in his bubble

Oval or rectangular, a very long table stands between Vladimir Putin and his interlocutors, a health precaution that reinforces the impression of a Russian president oblivious to the world, in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis, and that fuels jokes on the internet

During an interview Tuesday in the Kremlin, Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared each seated at one end of a white table, several meters long, and already familiar to Russia observers.

The scene reproduced last week’s with French President Emmanuel Macron. The Kremlin explained that this health precaution is adopted for any foreign guest who has refused a covid detection test carried out by a Russian doctor.

These scenes, unusual for high-level meetings, illustrate the magnitude of the precautions taken by the 69-year-old Russian head of state to avoid contamination with the coronavirus.

But they are also perceived by some as the symptom of an increasingly distant and isolated leader, whose intentions regarding the Ukrainian crisis are indecipherable.

On Monday, Putin imposed this distance even on his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Choigou, one of his friends with whom he used to spend vacations.

Both were forced to sit several meters from the president, during a meeting dedicated to Ukraine.

“Loneliness”

Seeing these photos, “it is evident that (Putin) is increasingly alone” estimates the independent political scientist Konstantin Kalatchev. “This loneliness is obvious: he doesn’t care what others think of him,” he adds.

Asked about it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Tuesday that these measures were “provisional” and related to the “peak of the wave” of the omicron, very contagious and often asymptomatic.

“There is nothing terrible or extraordinary. In these times it is necessary to take somewhat special measures” Peskov relativized.

In fact, the Russian president has been immersed for months in a health bubble, which seems more hermetic than those that protect other world leaders.

And all this occurs when Putin has not imposed any confinement in Russia since the spring of 2020, all this to preserve the economy and despite the fact that the balance of the epidemic is close to 700,000 dead in the country, according to the agency. of Rosstat statistics.

Instead, foreign delegations or journalists who want to go to the Kremlin must undergo three PCR tests in the preceding four days.

And foreign leaders who visit Russia and want physical proximity to Putin must agree to have a Kremlin doctor stick a swab up their nose. If they don’t, they must be content with a chair at the end of a long table.

Jokes

All this has generated an avalanche of humorous comments on social networks, offsetting the tensions around Ukraine, a crisis that raises the specter of war in Europe.

The Russian president cultivates the image of a strong man. But the “internet memes” that previously showed him on the back of a bear, have given way to those who suggest the Swedish giant IKEA create a long table model baptized “Putin”, or those who imagine the Kremlin table on the runway. tennis or skating. With these photos, Putin “runs the risk of appearing ridiculous,” says the political scientist Kalatchev.

Even the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, Putin’s European ally, who received him in the Kremlin in early February, “joked that he had never seen such a long table,” says this political scientist.

On the other hand, Kalatchev himself jokes this time, these photos “should reassure everyone, since it is unlikely that a person who cares so much about his health would trigger the third world war.”