From The Guardian

Coronavirus: 
Russia sends plane full of medical supplies to US

Critics likely to claim Moscow will exploit goodwill 
gesture as public relations coup



Boxes with medical masks and equipment onboard a Russian plane at Chkalovsky airport. 
Photograph: Russian Defense Ministry/Tass

Andrew Roth in Moscow
Wed 1 Apr 2020 05.01 EDTLast modified on Wed 1 Apr 2020 06.24 EDT


Russia has dispatched a cargo plane with masks and medical equipment 
to the US after Donald Trump accepted an offer of humanitarian aid 
from Vladimir Putin to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

The plane, a Russian Antonov An-124-100 military transport, left 
from Chkalovsky airfield outside Moscow on Tuesday night and will 
arrive in the US on Wednesday after refuelling at Shannon airport 
in Ireland. Footage from the plane broadcast by Russian state television 
showed stacks of cardboard boxes in the cargo hold.

The delivery is likely to stir controversy among critics of Trump, 
who have said Putin will portray the goodwill gesture as a public 
relations coup and use it to bolster Russia’s efforts to escape 
sanctions for meddling in the 2016 US elections.

Masks and other medical equipment are also in short supply in Russia, 
where the number of infected with coronavirus rose by 440 on 
Wednesday to a confirmed 2,777 cases. The Moscow mayor, 
Sergei Sobyanin, warned Putin last week that the official tally 
of cases underestimated the severity of the outbreak.

The US has more than 188,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus 
and more than 3,900 deaths attributed to the disease. 
Government scientists have said working models show tens, 
or even hundreds of thousands of people dying from the 
disease in the US alone.

In an apparent error, Trump on Monday said the aid had already 
arrived from Russia, telling reporters in the White House Rose Garden: 
"Russia sent us a very, very large planeload of things, medical equipment, 
which was very nice.” It was the first mention of aid from Moscow.

Later, the Kremlin announced that Putin had offered Trump the aid 
during a one-on-one telephone conversation when the two sides 
discussed measures to fight coronavirus.

“Trump gratefully accepted this humanitarian aid,” 
Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters. 
“Now that this situation has affected everyone without 
exception and is global, there is no alternative to joint action 
in the spirit of partnership and mutual help.”

Peskov also said that Putin “assumes that when US makers of 
medical equipment and materials have gained speed, they too 
will be able to reciprocate if necessary”.

Russia has already sent planeloads of masks and other medical aid 
to Italy, deploying medics in military vehicles labelled: 
“From Russia with Love.” Russia’s military said the aid included 
22 vehicles and mobile disinfection labs. Italian officials publicly 
thanked Russia for the aid. A widely circulated report in the 
La Stampa newspaper cited senior officials calling the aid 
80% “useless”.

“Hopefully someone will tell Trump that he’s playing right into a 
propaganda ploy,” wrote Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment 
for International Peace on Twitter.