How coronavirus wound up exposing the weakness of Putin’s power structure

As you go down his power vertical, chains of command resemble brittle fetters held together by compromise. For many, the overriding concern is about avoiding blame, writes Oliver Carroll

The president addresses the nation about the pandemic last month (Getty)

In a famous quote, Joseph Stalin described one death as a “tragedy” and a million as a “statistic”.

The phrase is almost universally misinterpreted; Stalin did not, apparently, think the latter was acceptable. But it does go some way to capture the numbness many of us feel when hit by daily updates of grimness.

Over eight weeks, as numbers have edged further and further north, we’ve almost lost our ability to count.