'Disinfection tunnel' set up to protect Vladimir Putin from coronavirus

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been protected from the coronavirus by a special disinfection tunnel that anyone visiting his residence outside Moscow must pass through, according to state television.

The special tunnel, manufactured by a Russian company based in the town of Penza, has been installed at his official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow where he receives visitors, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Demonstration footage of the tunnel, published by RIA, showed masked people passing through it being sprayed with disinfectant from the ceiling and from the side.

The Russian news agency described the disinfectant as a fine cloud of liquid that covered people’s clothes and any exposed upper body flesh.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said in April that anyone meeting Putin in person was tested for the virus. A month later, Peskov said he had himself been infected.

Russia has recorded over 500,000 infections, the third highest number of cases in the world after Brazil and the United States, something it attributes to a large testing programme.

Russia has registered more than 7,000 deaths so far – fewer than numerous other countries. Critics are dubious about the accuracy of its mortality figures.