Page 33 - RusRPTFeb21

2.11 ​Politics - misc
Good news on the COVID front: a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet found that Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine is 91.6% effective​. The study data come from a Phase 3 trial that included 20,000 participants. Starting 21 days after the first dose, 16 vaccinated participants developed symptomatic coronavirus infections versus 62 participants in the placebo group. No one in the vaccinated group suffered a moderate or severe infection. The vaccine was also found over 90% effective in individuals over 60.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh was still not resolved as he met the leader of his country's arch foe Azerbaijan in Moscow on January 11​. President Vladimir Putin hosted the heads of the two former Soviet states for a rare trilateral meeting and urged them to negotiate further steps in a November peace agreement that ended weeks of fierce clashes over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. But Pashinyan insisted Monday that key issues surrounding the conflict were in limbo and needed to be resolved immediately. "Unfortunately, this conflict is still not settled," he told journalists after talks in the Kremlin that lasted nearly four hours.
The coronavirus outbreak in Moscow has started to subside ​which clears the path for authorities to slowly return the city to normality, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, ​TASS​ reports. “Moscow has minimal restrictions compared to what is imposed in other cities. Today, we can already say with confidence that the pandemic has started to subside. We have begun gradually, step by step, reopening the city for normal life,” he said when visiting a coronavirus hospital in Moscow. Sobyanin lifted some restrictions in the Russian capital on January 22. For example, museums reopened, while cinemas and theaters can be filled to 50%. However, remote work is still in place with 30% of employees being mandated to work from home, while Moscow residents over 65 and people with chronic health conditions are recommended to stay home and avoid going out. Restrictions also remain for restaurants, clubs, bars, karaoke places and similar businesses.
An article in the New York Times on February 3 quotes top US president Joe Biden’s foreign policy officials saying that Washington is “sanctioned out” ​in its attempts to change Russian foreign policy. The new US administration has criticized the events in Russia and military take over in Myanmar this week. "And, in both cases, Mr. Biden has hinted that sanctions, a favourite, if now wildly overused, tool of American power, will soon follow," the article noted as cited by Tass. However, "there was recognition among Mr. Biden’s top aides that, in the words of one of them, that when it comes to the Kremlin, ‘We’re pretty sanctioned out”,” the NYT said citing the officials.
33 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ February 2021 ​ ​www.intellinews.com