Commenting on the results of the survey, Delyagin said confidently that Sobyanin is dishonoring and discrediting the government and is thereby personally inflicting serious damage on Russia’s state institutes.
Mikhail Delyagin, a well-known Russian political scientist and economist, decided to find out what the Russians think about the measures aimed at easing the self-isolation regulations in Moscow, as well as about the so-called “masks-and-gloves” requirement introduced earlier by Moscow Mayor. In his opinion, Sobyanin might even “take revenge on Moscow’s residents for their discipline.”
Delyagin wondered why during the easing of restrictions people in Moscow were suddenly required to wear face masks. He drew attention to the fact that the effectiveness of wearing masks had been repeatedly disputed by many researchers and physicians. Moreover, Delyagin recalled the repeated warnings by doctors that the regular wearing of face masks only harms people’ health.
Among other things, Mikhail Delyagin was also interested why the wearing of gloves and face masks was not mandatory for everyone at the height of the COVID-19 epidemic, but specifically, why Sergei Sobyanin suddenly decided to force everyone around to wear protective outfits simultaneously with easing the restrictive measures. In his Telegram channel, Delyagin posted a survey with the help of which he tried to find out the Russians’ opinion about the restrictive measures introduced by Sobyanin. In a fairly short period of time, about 5,000 people took part in this survey. Its results were very interesting.
For instance, more than a third of respondents (36%) believe that in doing so, Sobyanin or some other influential forces in the Russian capital are merely earning money off the people. According to another 21%, Moscow Mayor is simply trying to cause a stir, even though tensions among the residents are already quite noticeable. In their opinion, in doing so, Sobyanin is fanning their dissatisfaction with the government and Vladimir Putin personally, in order to take his post then. A total of 15% of respondents believed that the reason for this decision by Sobyanin was caused by his striving to establish personal authority over the city. Slightly fewer respondents (13%) decided that in this way Moscow is testing a digital system for recognizing the faces of people wearing face masks. Only 9% do not see any malicious intent in the actions of Moscow Mayor. They believe that he might have simply put into effect all the recommendations of the Health Ministry, without thinking about their validity or consequences.
Commenting on the results of this survey, Delyagin confidently said that Sobyanin dishonors and discredits the government is thereby personally causing serious damage to the Russian state machinery. He believes that this could be a pivotal point, because even today there are serious changes in the ordinary Russians’ behavior and moods. Notably, all this is happening against the background of the discredit to institutes, says Delyagin. In his opinion, the Victory Day parade with the mandatory wearing of masks will look like a masquerade and perceived by the public as a mockery of memory of the soldiers who liberated the country.