Covid-19 deaths in Russia are soaring

FOR THE past year the Kremlin has trumpeted its success in fighting covid-19. It eschewed lockdowns and hailed its home-grown Sputnik V vaccine. In early June, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, boasted to thousands of guests at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, billed as the world's largest post-pandemic international gathering, that “the current situation in Russia allows us to hold such events without any particular risk of spreading the infection.”