Putin has cancelled
his flight to St. Petersburg.
MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver his address to the Russian
citizens over the coronavirus on Wednesday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov
told reporters.
The address will be
broadcast on television at 3 p.m. Moscow Time.
"Today the president’s
schedule was changed: he is canceling his flight to St. Petersburg to stay in
Moscow. Now he is working and in the coming hours he will complete the work on
the text of his address to the citizens," Peskov said.
The Kremlin spokesman
explained that this decision was made after an hours-long meeting on Tuesday on
the epidemiological situation and a meeting with the leadership of the
government, the Central Bank and the presidential administration to discuss
support for citizens and national economy amid "the challenging global
economic situation caused by the coronavirus outbreak."
"Now the
president is completing the work on the address, it will be broadcast on
television in the coming hours," Peskov noted.
Earlier, Putin was
scheduled to pay a working visit to the Northwestern Federal District.
"Tomorrow we are still planning to go to St. Petersburg, the program for
tomorrow will be fulfilled there," Peskov said.
Putin is planning to
take part in the G20 leaders’ video conference on the coronavirus on Thursday,
Peskov told reporters. The event will be held at the initiative of Saudi
Arabia, which is presiding over the G20.
The number of the
novel coronavirus cases in Russia has grown by 163 over the past day to 658,
with 55 regions hit by the disease, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana
Golikova said earlier on Wednesday. A total of 29 people have recovered.
The coronavirus
outbreak was recorded in central China in late December 2019. More than 160
countries have been hit by this infection, which was labeled as a pandemic by
the World Health Organization in March 2020. According to the latest data, over
410,000 people have contracted the virus and more than 18,000 have died.
Source: ITAR-TASS
25-03-2020
