He may be his country’s top diplomat, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has chosen to display in his mask a decidedly un-diplomatic language that seemed to ridicule restrictions on the coronavirus.
In a widely shared image on social media, Lavrov was photographed near the Lijiang River in southeastern China, displaying a black cover with white letters that read “FCKNG QRNTN” in English.
The government spokesman newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that Lavrov, who turned 71 on Sunday, received the mask as a birthday present.
“The mask jokingly describes the attitude towards quarantine measures introduced worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic,” said the newspaper.
The Russian Foreign Ministry posted a TikTok video of Lavrov on the mask, adding the message: “The association’s journalists presented SV (Sergei Viktorovich) Lavrov with a mask. Both the mask and the inscription perfectly match the minister.”
He later wore a different mask without a slogan when he met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Newsweek contacted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
Although Russia has the fourth highest number of cases in the world, Russia has largely rejected a return to the blockade measures it imposed last year when, during the pandemic, President Vladimir Putin delegated responsibility for COVID to regional governors.
Last week, Putin appeared before tens of thousands of people who gathered for a concert and concert at the Luzhniki Stadium to mark the seventh anniversary of the Russian takeover of the Crimean region in Ukraine. Most of those present did not wear masks and ignored the requirements of social distance, reported Radio Europa Livre.
Anatoly Altshtein, an epidemiologist at the Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, told radio station Echo Moskvy that the event could lead to an increase in coronavirus infections in the Russian capital.
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Several months after the start of the widespread vaccination, Putin said he would take a COVID vaccine on Tuesday. Research carried out by an independent researcher, the Levada Center, earlier this month, found that Russians are becoming more reluctant to receive the Sputnik V vaccine that Russia has developed.
Meanwhile, Lavrov held talks with his Chinese counterpart this week, while Beijing and Moscow are facing deteriorating ties with Washington. Russia and China called a UN Security Council summit to resolve their differences.
“We note the destructive nature of US intentions, relying on Cold War era political-military alliances and creating new alliances in the same spirit, to undermine the UN-centered international legal architecture,” Lavrov said, according to Reuters .
The chart below provided by Statista describes the countries with the highest COVID vaccination rate.
