Alexei Tsydenov has been Head of the Republic of Buryatia, a Russian republic in Siberia on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal, since 2017. He was elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2022. Before leading the republic he worked in railway transport and served as a deputy minister of transport of the Russian Federation.
Case
Some reports say an Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute employee died of plague. Rospotrebnadzor says she had pneumonia of unknown etiology and found no emergency at the institute. The U.S. State Department says many details are unconfirmed. We found no announced test result identifying the cause.
Role at the time: Head of the Republic of Buryatia, in a post on his official Telegram channel
Response to this claim
Alexei Tsydenov wrote on October 2, 2026, citing Rospotrebnadzor and the Buryatia government, that the woman he described as having died of plague in the Irkutsk region did not come to Buryatia and that Buryatia has no plague foci, including on the territory bordering Mongolia.
“По данным Роспотребнадзора, а так же по данным правительства республики Бурятия, женщина, погибшая, возможно, от чумы в Иркутской области, не приезжала в Бурятию. В республике нет очагов чумы, в том числе на территории граничащей с Монголией. Источником заражения являются иные обстоятельства не связанные с Бурятией. Прошу СМИ учитывать данную информацию при публикациях по указанной теме.”
The reference point is the proposition that the illness of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute employee, reported to have died on October 1 or 2, 2026, was plague. The post treats plague as a possible cause of death and gives no basis, which makes the position conditional, so we used Mixed or conditional. The closest competing label is Condemned, which fit his first wording and loses here because of the express qualifier. Challenged the characterization loses because he does not dispute the plague description.
Role at the time: Head of the Republic of Buryatia, in a post on his VK page and MAX channel
Response to this claim
Alexei Tsydenov wrote on October 2, 2026, citing Rospotrebnadzor and the Buryatia government, that the woman he described as having died of plague in the Irkutsk region did not come to Buryatia and that Buryatia has no plague foci, including on the territory bordering Mongolia.
“женщина, погибшая от чумы в Иркутской области, не приезжала в Бурятию”
The reference point is the proposition that the illness of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute employee, reported to have died on October 1 or 2, 2026, was plague. Tsydenov states in passing that the woman died of plague, without a stated basis, so we used Condemned, which here records only an attributed assertion of the proposition. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, which fits the wording he posted on Telegram later that day (see the next entry) but not this text, which carries no qualifier. Challenged the characterization does not apply because he accepts the plague description rather than disputing it.
Statement dates: October 2, 2026
Statement dates: October 2, 2026
