Participants and journalists seeking access to Friday’s plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), where Russian President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to speak, were required to undergo testing for COVID-19, influenza and other respiratory diseases.
According to German newspaper Bild, only those who received negative results from laboratories accredited by the forum were granted special passes allowing entry to the session.
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Putin was expected to appear alongside Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
The testing requirement includes PCR screening, a laboratory method used to detect viral infections through samples collected from the nose or throat.
Strict health measures remain years after pandemic
Putin became known for imposing unusually strict health protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visitors seeking face-to-face meetings with the Kremlin leader were often required to undergo lengthy quarantine periods and repeated testing before being allowed into his presence.
Those precautions have largely remained in place even after the end of the pandemic.
One of the most widely discussed examples came in February 2022, when then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Moscow.
Photographs of the meeting showed Scholz and Putin seated at opposite ends of an exceptionally long table, separated by several meters.
At the time, the unusual arrangement was widely attributed to Kremlin concerns about potential coronavirus transmission.
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Forum takes place amid Russia’s wartime economy
The SPIEF remains one of Russia’s most prominent annual events and is often used by the Kremlin to showcase economic priorities and foreign partnerships.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however, the forum has lost many Western participants and corporate sponsors due to sanctions and political isolation.
Putin’s aide Yuriy Ushakov confirmed that a US delegation, led by Head of the US Federal Commission of Fine Arts Rodney Mims Cook, is visiting the SPIEF 2026 to talk about cultural ties amid a wider push from the West to separate culture from politics despite Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
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