In Russia’s push to promote its coronavirus vaccine, Putin is his own worst enemy.
After early skepticism over Russia dodging standard vaccine trials, an article published in the respected Lancet medical journal agrees that Sputnik V, announced by Vladimir Putin as the world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine back in August, is similarly as effective as its Western counterparts. For a nation with roughly 500 pandemic deaths a day, this is good news. But the Kremlin’s mangled credibility has gotten in the way: almost half of the Russian population is reluctant to take the government at its word.
Given the months he spent boasting about the vaccine success, Putin is desperate to quash that hesitation by making the vaccine as easily accessible as possible. Moscow has ordered a mass vaccination program—setting up vaccine sites at hipster markets, shopping centers, and cafes, and even giving out free ice cream to the freshly inoculated.
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Still, mass vaccination is “extremely slow, even by official data, on the level of the Netherlands, which started vaccinating a month later,” according to a recent report published in Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based investigative newspaper. Now, even after one of the world’s leading medical journals described the vaccine as “safe and effective,” Russia is only about 3 percent into its goal of vaccinating over 68 million citizens to reach a level of herd immunity. The Kremlin, it seems, has a long way to go.
For many, the Russian government has brought this setback on itself. “The Kremlin’s propaganda is to blame,” Olga Bychkova, deputy editor-in-chief of the radio station Echo of Moscow, told The Daily Beast. Russian intelligence has been linked to an endless stream of pandemic disinformation in recent months, including using fake social media accounts to spread conspiracy theories claiming that the U.S. military is responsible for creating the virus in the first place. “The same people who invent stories about MH17 and Navalny advertise Sputnik V and fail,” says Bychkova, who herself has had the Sputnik V vaccine.
The author of this article also had the Sputnik V jab in early January when the vaccination program opened to journalists.
Others are waiting for Putin, who has yet to be vaccinated, to lead by example. “I don’t understand, this is so weird. We won the world’s vaccine competition,” says Igor Strizhev, a 32-year-old economist in Russia. “Sputnik’s V stands for victory, so Putin, a healthy man who meets with tons of people every day, should have been among the first people getting the vaccine. I will wait until Putin has it and tells us how it went for him.”
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov addressed questions about Putin’s delay in taking the vaccine, saying that “the President has not made any concrete decision, yet. The President will announce himself, when he decides, and when he takes the vaccine.”
Some even said they would prefer to take a vaccine that hasn't been as heavily advertised as Sputnik V—the very act of the Kremlin promoting it has put people off. “I don’t have any desire to receive the geopolitical vaccine. That does not mean that I am against vaccination,” Ilya Azar, a Moscow local deputy, told The Daily Beast. “I will wait for the ‘Vector’—at least it was not so rushed and promoted,” he added, referring to EpiVacCorona, the second vaccine approved by Russia.
Now, as Russia’s coronavirus death toll approaches the 80,000 mark, the would-be success story of the world’s first coronavirus vaccine is stunted by public suspicion of a government known for its elaborate campaigns of lies and disinformation.
“There is the Russian government, but there is also Russian people; the younger generation is reading news online.” says Mikhail Zygar, a prominent expert in state propaganda who said he was wholly unsurprised by the Russian public’s reaction to the mass vaccination effort. “Our current government is ultimately disoriented, lost, and incapable of focusing on even a positive program.”
