Russia is sending medical aid to the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian government photo. 

Russia's President Vladimir Putin is sending medical aid to the United State. Reuters. Putin offered the aid to President Trump during a phone call where they were discussed the Coronavirus outbreak and the oil war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. A plane load of supplies will be sent to the United States. President Trump agreed that as American production increases the US Government will help Russia if their outbreak gets worse. 

My Comment:

Just a quick post on this one. I think it's great that America and Russia are helping each other out here. Though our two countries relationship is on the rocks at the moment I am glad that we are cooperating with each other to fight the virus. 

This isn't just a one way street though, Russia expects our help. Right now Russia is in a lot better shape than America but that may change in the future. As of this writing Russia has just over 2000 cases while America has almost 200,000, they are several weeks behind us in their outbreak. If the schedule of the Coronavirus holds we should be beginning our recovery right when Russia is reaching their peak, so they can help us with the worst part of our outbreak and we can then do the same for them.

Russia has been fairly lucky that they were able to slow the virus down in their country so far. It's clear that it's starting to pick up now but they did buy themselves a lot more time than other countries, mostly by shutting down borders a lot sooner than everyone else. That puts them in a good position to wait out the virus until better treatments are found. 

Complicating things is Russia's oil war with Saudi Arabia. Both countries are driving down oil prices in an effort to damage the other countries economy and corner the oil market. This is a pretty good thing for those of us still driving around (I filled my tank with 15 gallons of gas the other day and paid less than $18), it's really bad for basically every other country that is selling oil, including the United States. Hopefully this phone call between Trump and Putin will help solve that issue.