Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has been diagnosed with coronavirus and is being treated in hospital.
“Yes, I am sick, and receiving treatment,” Dmitry Peskov told Russian outlets by telephone on Tuesday. He said he had not seen Putin in person for more than a month.
He has been the Russian president’s spokesman for nearly two decades and is seen as one of his closest aides.
The Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, also has Covid-19 and is being treated in hospital, though he was well enough to take part in a government video call in recent days. Two cabinet ministers have also contracted the virus.
During a trip by Putin to a coronavirus ward in March, Peskov was the only person in the president’s entourage to wear a mask. Since then, Putin has mostly been working from a windowless office at his residence outside Moscow and conducting most government business by video link. He is being tested regularly for coronavirus, aides have said.
On Tuesday, he was pictured meeting in person with Igor Sechin, a close ally and the head of Rosneft oil company. Neither wore a mask, though they did sit far apart across a table.
Russian media reported that Peskov’s wife, Tatiana Navka, a former Olympic champion ice dancer, was also ill with coronavirus. She and Peskov are in hospital but reports suggest neither are in a critical condition.
Russia has more than 220,000 coronavirus cases, and the second-highest rate of growth in the world after the US. On Monday, Putin announced an end to a nationwide lockdown but said regional leaders would remain free to keep restrictions in place.
Moscow accounts for more than half of infections in Russia, and the city authorities have said strict restrictions will remain in place until at least the end of May.
