On 20 April, around 500 demonstrators gathered in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz to protest against job losses and lack of information about the coronavirus outbreak, reported the Moscow Times. 

Protesters expressed their disbelief that the coronavirus epidemic is real, and demanded that isolation measures be cancelled, that businesses and schools be reopened, their informal leader be released and the resignation of the head of North Ossetia Vyacheslav Bitarov. None of the protesters wore face masks. The protesters also complained that the Bavaria brewing company, which belongs to the Bitarov’s family, continued to work despite the epidemic.

Unconfirmed reports stated that up to 1,500 residents took part in the rally. The unrest in Vladikavkaz follows anti-isolation protests in another North Ossetia town, Digora, that drew around 100 people earlier in April. 

National Guard troops have been deployed at the scene and at least three people, including the organizers, have been detained. “I didn’t make up this disease and there’s one treatment: stay home,” Vyacheslav Bitarov, the governor of Russia’s republic of North Ossetia, was quoted as telling protesters in an attempt to get them to disperse. “If someone proves to me that there is no coronavirus, I will open everything again,” he added. 

The unofficial leader of the protesters is local opera singer Vadim Cheldiev, who categorically does not believe in the existence of the coronavirus or a pandemic. “Today, under the pretext of the coronavirus, which doesn’t exist, people are driven into slavery, they are trying to establish total control over us all,” said Cheldiev in a video. Cheldiev was detained two days ago on charges of disseminating false information. He is also charged with “using violence against a government official” which is punishable by up to five years in prison. 

The protesters are proposing that Vladikavkaz parliamentarian Vitaly Kaloev become Bitarov’s successor. Kaloev is famous for having killed a Swiss air traffic controller and avenged his wife and children’s death in a plane crash. In 2004, the Kaloev family was travelling from Russia to Spain. Due to a mistake by Swiss dispatcher Peter Nielsen, a Russian plane collided with a DHL cargo plane over Lake Constance, killing all 60 passengers and 9 crew members. In October 2005, Vitaliy Kaloev arrived in Switzerland and killed this dispatcher. He received eight years in prison. In December 2007, a court in Switzerland released him for exemplary conduct, and immediately after that Kaloev returned to Russia. In 2019, Vitaliy Kaloev became a candidate for deputy of the city assembly of Vladikavkaz from the ruling United Russia party. Kaloev did not comment on the situation and did not participate in the protest.

The trigger of this event happened on 7 April, when several people attempted to break into a city hospital in Vladikavkaz, demanding that they show evidence of the existence of COVID-19. This confrontation coincided with the news of the first coronavirus death in the republic. The victim was reportedly 83 years old and had chronic illnesses. His sample tested positive for COVID-19 at the laboratory of the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology of North Ossetia. When the incident occurred, Cheldiev criticized the authorities and the police and urges people not to believe “in tales of a pandemic.” He claimed that since the doctors were “well paid, they are sitting in isolation, hiding their faces from the public and letting the money roll in.”

North Ossetia had reported 177 coronavirus cases and 2 deaths. Russia had reported a total of 52 763 coronavirus cases and 456 deaths.