“Hey, what’s the latest Virus News from Russia?” you are undoubtedly asking yourself (except for the Very Serious Pundits, who continue to pretend Russia “dropped” all COVID restrictions in January or February, depending on the Serious Pundit). Thank you so much for asking.
Leader of St. Petersburg cattle tag rebellion still languishing in prison for no reason whatsoever
Alexander Konovalov is a businessman in St. Petersburg who operates various bars and hookah lounges. When the city’s extremely constipated governor, Alexander Beglov, announced in January that St. Petersburg “will not return to its former way of life” and that “ubiquitous QR codes are an important and very timely step in this direction,” Mr. Konovalov did a very naughty thing—he refused to comply with the cattle tag regime.
Then something very unexpected happened: Konovalov was arrested.
Six months have passed—surely he has been released by now? Ha-ha. Nyet.
Our friends at Katyusha.org have the details:
The Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg extended for another two months the detention period for businessman Alexander Konovalov, who last winter became the leader of the “bar resistance” against the draconian COVID restrictions of Governor Alexander Beglov…
Konovalov’s defense rightly notes that the investigation has not taken active steps in the Konovalov case for five months now, and the accused has been in jail all this time. And at the same time, to his credit, he does not give up, noting that the loss of freedom was worth the unification of people and resistance to lawlessness, which he led.
We observe that the “COVID Party” is still very strong, and continues to dictate its agenda to the Russian and other indigenous peoples of Russia and is preparing for the autumn blitzkrieg — as their masters from the CIA and Big Pharma intended…
But this is not a reason to retreat and stop the fight against lawlessness. We really hope that… Konovalov will soon be released, and all the real suspected criminals who have been harassing, segregating, removing from work and forcibly chipping our fellow citizens since 2020 (while complying with the directives of global “partners”) will be punished.
Quick question: How is it that Very Serious Pundits continue to claim Russia karate-chopped COVID Tyranny, while one of Russia’s leading independent media outlets is reporting that the country’s COVID cabal is still “very strong” and is planning fresh shenanigans in the coming months? Someone is fibbing, but who? It’s a total mystery.
Masks are back in vogue?
Russia’s federal COVID Nanny decreed on July 1 that all remaining mask rules would be dropped (except in the Kremlin, of course). This brave policy U-turn lasted… less than three weeks?
On July 20, TASS revealed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had ordered various departments to re-don face diapers.
Around the same time, Russia’s shopping centers signaled they were prepared to reintroduce mask requirements at their establishments—they’re just waiting for the dreaded “Centaur Mutation” to hit?
Meanwhile, Rospotrebnadzor (which, again, “canceled” mask rules at the start of July) is now urging “vulnerable” Russians to mask up. At least one region has already brought back mandatory masking in hospitals.
Probably nothing.
Moscow clings to arbitrary Virus Tyranny
On May 1, your Resident Tbilisi Correspondent typed the following observations:
Russia has not defeated the Virus Scam. On the contrary, the scam has become more wanton, shameless and arbitrary. It is being turned on and off like a light switch without even the pretense of trying to safeguard public health. This is a feature, not a bug, of Permanent Biosecurity.
Still very true today, unfortunately. Moscow’s beloved mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, has taken arbitrary COVID rules to the next level—he’s citing the WHO:
Personally, we aren’t a big fan of the Yabloko Party. But if Sobyanin is preventing them from holding a rally because “COVID”—while claiming he needs permission from the WHO before certain political parties can congregate—that’s… incredibly lame? If you’re going to curb-stomp unwanted political opposition, maybe come up with a better excuse? Is that asking too much?
Probably all normal people can agree that using the Virus to restrict political activity is slightly worrying? Or is it somehow okay and justified when Sobyanin—an actual cyborg programmed to destroy Moscow—does it? Curious minds want to know.
New coercive vax decrees!
Various regions have been dropping their compulsory vax edicts after reaching the Holy Grail of “80% herd immunity.” But if Russians aren’t forced to get injected, how will Russia expend its stockpile of 100 million doses of (expired) genetic slurry?
The federal government is now holding daily meetings with the regions to make sure everyone understands the severity of the situation:
Thankfully, some regions have taken the necessary measures to ensure all those unwanted Sputnik shots are put to good use:
It is what it is.
This time around, there will be more significant resistance.
The message of the anti-vax, anti-lockdown crowd has gotten through to the prole masses. Many people who were having themselves a nice moral panic and virtue-signaling over the virus have fallen quiet. One can only hope that they drop dead from either the vax or the shame.
Point being, even with my exceedingly low opinion of the masses, I can't imagine the second round of hysteria gaining as much steam as the first. If they try it, there's going to be significant populist backlash and they'll back down.
First of all - nice music clip, Edward, especially considering it's over 30 years old!
As for the situation in Russia, it seems like the globalist, aligned with the West forces there have recovered after the initial shock of breaking up relationship with their masters after the start of the SMO. Relationship is slowly recovering, and to expedite the process they have taken up a task to prove their loyalty and worthiness, so they eagerly got to work reinforcing the common trend that we observe globally - return of COVID! And it doesn't matter to them if population will accept it or not, especially that they know that Russians hardly ever go to public protests. Russian national strategy in fighting evil government forces is to cheat and to evade. This is what actually led to the diversity that we observe in behavior and mental capacity of the Russian population called "cerebral sorting", but this is a topic for a separate note.
But the increasing tendency to disregard public opinion is not specific to Russia only. This is a global trend in making us accustomed to the New Normal, no matter what we think of it. Here is an interesting piece on this subject by CJ Hopkins, an American playwright that lives in Germany https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/the-normalization-of-the-new-normal . I wish there was a universal tool in fighting this trend, but I'm afraid that only losing control of the situation can make the evil forces driving this agenda to experience a Sri Lanka moment!