Traitors is an entirely appropriate word for Russia’s authorities right now, during the epidemic. ⠀ Swipe through the carousel. Ivanovo Oblast (a region of Russia). An ordinary Russian region. Our fellow citizens live there. They pay taxes. Part of the oil and gas extracted from the ground and sold abroad belongs to them too. ⠀ And yet, to treat the residents of Ivanovo Oblast, ventilators—without which severely ill coronavirus patients die—are being scavenged from decommissioned and broken-down ambulances. ⠀ You can imagine what a decommissioned ambulance is like. Everything in it is completely wrecked. But even that kind of ventilator will do for our people. They’re not Italians, after all. They’re used to it. ⠀ So it turns out that the person who will be wheezing and dying on a bed in a Russian hospital without this machine paid for the production and delivery of the same brand-new machine to Italy and the United States—countries where the average salary is about twenty times higher than in Ivanovo Oblast. ⠀ And this is happening all across the country now. The whole country is one enormous Ivanovo Oblast. ⠀ So yes, there are traitors and enemies in the Kremlin.