Putin’s minions scramble to cover up freak accident at Biolab

Vladimir Putin faces a new domestic crisis as he escalates his war against Ukraine: a freak laboratory accident involving pneumonic plague and a frantic campaign to cover it up.

The dizzying turn of events began on Friday in Siberia’s Irkutsk region, when news broke that a 28-year-old woman had died of suspected pneumonic plague at a hospital in the town of Shelekhov. Several local reports indicate that she was working as a laboratory technician at a research institute and accidentally broke a vial containing the plague pathogen; other reports indicate she had just returned from a work trip and may have contracted it elsewhere.

Chelekhov Hospital was immediately quarantined, along with 200 people who had been in contact with the woman, according to local newspaper People of Baikal. Regional authorities called an emergency meeting involving Putin’s powerful Federal Security Service, and FSB units were later seen accompanying ambulances with people in quarantine.

However, as of Saturday, Kremlin-controlled media and local authorities began to quickly erase all traces of the information. The city of Baykalsk issued an alert calling on residents to avoid traveling to Shelekhov, only to delete the post two hours later. REN-TV deleted five publications on the crisis from its Telegram channel.

But local authorities were still clearly trying to prevent an outbreak, postponing public events in Irkutsk due to the “unfavorable epidemiological situation.”