I think he's also afraid of Covid. Our chancellor Olaf Scholz is on a visit to Moscow, and his entire delegation had to take four PCR tests before getting on the plane to Moscow, plus one on the plane once they arrived. Scholz refused to have the Russians take his PCR test, so he had people from the German embassy come to the plane to test him. The Russians only agreed to that if they are allowed to supervise the testing procedure.