Macron and Putin table meeting mocked by hosts
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Two sources close to Mr Macron reportedly told Reuters that the French President was given a choice between a PCR test so him and Russian President Vladimir Putin could sit close together, or abide by social distancing and sit far away from his Russian counterpart during their meeting.
Mr Macron chose option number two, and is said to even have avoided shaking hands with the Russian leader.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was understanding of the French position, which he claimed was guided by the desire to preotect Mr Putin during thier meeting.
But Mr Peskov said it had nothing to do with politics and maintained that it had no effect on the discussions.
One of the sources told Reuters: “We knew very well that meant no handshake and that long table. But we could not accept that they get their hands on the president’s DNA.”
The two leaders then ended up sitting at opposite ends of the 4 metre-long table after the French’s security concerns about being tested by Russian doctors.
Instead of taking the PCR test offered by the Russian authorities, the source said that Mr Macron took a French PCR test before he set off to meet Mr Putin.
He is also said to have done an antigen test done performed by his own doctor once he touched down in Moscow.
The second source told Reuters: “The Russians told us Putin needed to be kept in a strict health bubble.”
The Russian President has reportedly been increadibly careful about COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic, reportely staying in a “virus-free bubble” that his security forces created.
Back inn March, the BBC reported that the Kremlin had spent aroun $85million (£63million) on quarantine accommodation for visitors and staff who came into contact with Mr Putin, as well as a host of other measures to protect the president from the virus.
And back in September, Mr Putin announced he was entering into self-isolation after it emerged that there was a Covid outbreak in his inner circle.
It came less than three months after he announced that he had been vaccinated.
Back in May 2021, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia country could consider cloning a group of 3,000-year-old warriors buried in Siberia.
He reportedly told the Russian Geographical Society that “it would be possible to make something of it, if not Dolly the Sheep.”
Mr Shoigu was referring to the ancient DNA of Scythian warriors, which was found preserved in permafrost in tundra of Siberia.
Russia’s Defence Minister added that several expeditions there have already taken place.
Scythians were nomadic people who stretched from northern Mongolia all the way to Iran and lived between the 9th and 2nd Centuries BCE.
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