Moscow Plans to Use Coronavirus Vaccine to Strengthen Its Influence Abroad

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 12 – Despite the Russian government’s statement it will  inoculate its own citizens first and suggestions the vaccine may not be as safe and effective as Moscow says, the Kremlin plans to use its coronavirus vaccine to increase its influence abroad by providing it to some but not others, experts suggest (regnum.ru/news/3034636.html and svpressa.ru/society/article/273199/).

            Russian media are reporting that many countries are interested in purchasing the vaccine, from Central Asia to Latin America, thus giving Moscow the opportunity to pick and choose to whom to make this vaccine available regnum.ru/news/3034816.html, stanradar.com/news/full/40819-vaktsina-ot-covid-19-najdena-kogda-kyrgyzstan-smozhet-ego-kupit.htmland regnum.ru/news/3034474.html).

            Russian officials say Western skepticism about the Russian vaccine represents nothing more than sour grapes by competitors who have lost the race (regnum.ru/news/3034661.html) and that Moscow is pressing ahead with production and efforts to register the medication with the WHO (regnum.ru/news/3034981.html and regnum.ru/news/3034948.html).

            Russian medical experts say that Moscow will continue testing the vaccine even after it receives WHO certification (regnum.ru/news/3035250.html and regnum.ru/news/3035249.html). They also have dismissed earlier suggestions that a special vaccine will have to be prepared for children (regnum.ru/news/3034736.html).

            Cities and regions across Russia are beginning to make plans for mass inoculation (politsovet.ru/67433-ekaterinburg-gotovitsya-k-massovoy-vakcinacii.html). But one Russian doctor has suggested there may be a glitch: those who want the shot will have to abstain from alcohol on the day they get it, no easy task for many (regnum.ru/news/3034413.html).

            But despite the focus on the vaccine, Russian media are reporting that the pandemic is continuing. Over the last 24 hours, officials registered 5102 new cases and 129 new deaths, bringing those totals to 902,701 and 15,260 respectively (t.me/COVID2019_official/1269). And the pandemic is not only continuing but ebbing and flowing across Russia (regnum.ru/news/society/3033993.html).

            The city of Moscow has been opening up, but officials there say the share of people wearing masks has increased from 68 percent in mid-June to 75  percent now (regnum.ru/news/3034630.html).

            Some Russian economists are now saying the decline in Russian GDP has been less than projected (regnum.ru/news/3035031.html) and continuing to insist that all of the falloff has been the result of the pandemic (regnum.ru/news/3035014.html), others are saying recovery will be a long time coming (regnum.ru/news/3034348.html).

            On the political front, the Riddle news agency has published an analysis of the impact of the coronavirus on Duma sessions and concluded that the pandemic has given the Kremlin new ways to control the country’s political parties and political system as a whole (ridl.io/ru/gosduma-i-covid-19/).

            Meanwhile, in other pandemic-related developments in Russia today,

·         Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow has evacuated more than 275,000 Russian citizens from foreign countries but that 23,000 are still waiting to be brought home (regnum.ru/news/3034330.html).

·         Russian experts are beginning to examine the way the Russian government has handled the pandemic. Moscow economist Andrey Kolganov has sharply criticized the regime for not using funds from its reserves to help overcome the illness and its economic consequences (regnum.ru/news/economy/3035046.html).

·         As many as a million Russians who have left the major cities because of the pandemic may not return anytime soon, especially as they can work from their dachas (russian.eurasianet.org/россия-пандемия-навсегда-выгнала-из-городов-миллионы-людей).