DISINFO: Sputnik V infuriates the West the same way as the Soviet ideology of revolutionary socialism
SUMMARY
With Sputnik V, Russia infuriates the West for exactly the same reason as in the Soviet times. Today, it offers to the world a better, cheaper and more demanded product than the “Free World” is able to produce. In the times of the USSR, this product was the ideology of revolutionary socialism, which pushed people to fight against colonialism and imperialism, responding to the vital needs of oppressed peoples around the globe. Today, the Russian offer is slightly more modest – it fits in a small syringe with a needle.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the West, aiming to promote the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.
All vaccines, authorised by the European Medicines Agency are welcome in the EU. As of the 17 February 2021, the producer of the Sputnik V vaccine has not sumbitted a market authorisation to the European Medicines Agency.
The claim that the West is “infuriated” with a “better, cheaper and more demanded” Russian vaccine is unfounded. Reservations and criticism of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine stemmed from the fact that Russia did not complete large trials to test the vaccine’s safety and efficacy before releasing it. Rolling out an inadequately vetted vaccine could endanger people who receive it.
On February 2 interim results from a phase 3 trial of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine were finally published in The Lancet. The trial results show a consistent strong protective effect across all participant age groups, meaning that the Sputnik V vaccine candidate appears safe and effective.
The same article contains another disinformation message that Polish media bombards Poles with Russophobia and primitive anti-Communism.
The same disinformation campaign includes statements such as "Western attacks on the Russian coronavirus vaccine are a corporate cold war against humanity" or "Russian progress in COVID-19 vaccine has become for the West an outrageous challenge", that Sputnik V is a target of the corporate cold war; that the West wants to discredit the Sputnik V; that the WHO and Microsoft sabotaged the Russian vaccine, that the West criticises the Sputnik V because it can’t accept Russia’s primacy and because its pharmaceutical companies will lose billions of dollars.