Russians have reported its highest one-day Covid death toll amid a spike in cases of the virus in their country.
The country saw 852 Covid deaths on Tuesday, the government said, which comes after more than two months of reporting around 770 deaths per day.
Russia’s Covid cases, which had been in decline since mid-July according to official statistics, have also been rising sharply in the last two weeks and on Tuesday hit 21,559, up from to 18,796 a week before.
The rise in both cases and deaths come a week after elections were held – which Putin’s party won amid claims of ‘unprecedented’ fraud.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, has denied plans to reintroduce lockdowns to combat cases – saying only that the situation is being watched ‘closely’.