Poison has always been a tool of autocrats the world over; Russia is no exception. The tsarist regime was something of an expert in the field, but the October Revolution did not put an end to the practice: Lenin had a special laboratory set up to get rid of his opponents. Faithful to this tradition, the Russian secret services need little encouragement to use poison to intimidate or to kill (Litvinenko in 2006 and Skripal in 2018 are recent examples of this) (see EUROPE 12176/5).
There’s no doubt that the citizens of the European Union generally see Putin as a dictator, but are they aware that there is a growing opposition movement in Russia? If Alexei Navalny was poisoned, it is because he represented this movement and his investigations into corruption, which were spread widely over the Internet, were starting to upset the apple cart. Things did not, however, go quite as planned: the opposition figurehead was treated in Berlin and, once discharged, decided to return to Russia. What happened next is common knowledge: he was arrested and imprisoned (for a sentence which runs until the eve of the presidential elections of 2024), sparking mass demonstrations that brought some 100,000 people to the streets, 10% of whom were arrested, in acts of brutal repression most of which were caught on camera (see EUROPE 12650/17). The neighbouring Belarus had shown that a candidate without vast resources could win a presidential election and the general mood of anger had not abated. Experts conclude that Putin, who knows from his own experience that a regime can fall overnight, is running scared.
Scientific research in Russia is not at the top of its game: under-funding, brain drain, particularly among young people, obsolete equipment, all in spite of investments approved by Putin. There have been a few Russian Nobel prizewinners for physics in recent years, but you would have to go back to 1908 find one for medicine and as for chemistry, the only one in the last 50 years was Prigogine, who became a naturalised Belgian citizen in 1949.
Even so, the country has an effective tradition of producing vaccines. Since at least the 1950s, the Soviet authorities have organised mass vaccination campaigns (smallpox, polio, tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria, etc...). After all, poison and vaccine both fall under the heading of specialised biochemistry. More recently, the Gamaleya Institute has done sterling work in developing antidotes against the Ebola virus and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). In August 2020 there came an unexpected success: on the basis of this experience, researchers found a vaccine for Covid-19.
Here was a golden opportunity to rally people behind this national triumph (which is a different epidemic entirely, for which no vaccine has yet been discovered). What makes the Russian soul dream? The conquest of space. In a slightly childish procedure, the serum known as Gam-COVID-Vac was rechristened with the name of the craft that in 1960 became the first to bring living creatures back to earth (42 mice, two rats, two dogs and a rabbit): Sputnik V (which should be read as a letter rather than a number: V for Vaccine, Victory, Vladimir…) and immediately honoured by the highly enthusiastic President.
The national immunisation campaign was launched in December of last year, but the Russian people are not exactly beating down the doors to get it: between 32% and 42% told opinion polls in January that they would like to have this injectable elixir. With 2.7 doses per every 100 people, Russia is barely above the global average, coming behind China and a long way behind the Top 10, which includes Israel, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the USA and then five EU member states. For Moscow, the logistical priority is objectively domestic: there is no question of joining the global COVAX initiative.
And yet the impulsive force of geopolitics is irresistible: Russia must shine! Gamaleya is not equipped for very large-scale production; be that as it may, it could start abroad, using local structures. International lobbying could get underway. The next stroke of luck came on 2 February, the day of Navalny’s sentencing, when the prestigious scientific review The Lancet approved the Russian vaccine: it is 91% effective, inexpensive and easy to store.
When the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, flew to Moscow, he was intending to meet Navalny on 5 February and to discuss “human rights” with Russian minister Sergey Lavrov. The latter snubbed him, showed him a video of police violence in the West, while three diplomats from EU member states were expelled. The press conference was even more humiliating. When asked about the vaccine, Borrell went into flattery overdrive, going so far as to congratulate the Russians and express his hope that the European Medicines Agency would swiftly give its green light (see EUROPE 12652/1). It is not known whether the independent scientists appreciated this gesture. The fact remains that on 10 February, the Agency published an official clarification: contrary to rumour, it had not received an application from the Russians for their Sputnik to be subjected to any monitoring procedure, let alone to be authorised to use on the European market.
And yet in January, when the 27 were officially united in their agreement to centralise all contracts and orders under the aegis of the Commission, the Hungarian leader, already a great veteran of breaches of European solidarity, went ahead and bought 2 million doses from Russia and entered into talks with China. With more respect for form, Germany, the Czech Republic and Spain expressed an interest in the Russian jabs, if approved by the EMA (see EUROPE 12651/1). The French authorities have not said no and Ms Le Pen helpfully tweeted that 52% of the French (a higher figure than the Russians!) would be prepared to have the Sputnik V vaccine. On the doorstep of the EU, Belarus, Bosnia and Serbia have bought the Russian nectar and, further afield, so too have the Palestinians (unlike the Israelis, who are major consumers of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine) and the Latin Americans...
Back in the EU, who could possibly be against? The Baltic states and Poland; as for the others, everything is up in the air at this stage. Unsurprisingly, our neighbour Ukraine decided instead to buy Chinese doses (see EUROPE 12655/19). Clearly, all of these decisions are shot through with political considerations.
One may be forgiven for wondering, as the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, recently did, why, instead of vaccinating its own population, Russia is sending millions of doses of it elsewhere (see EUROPE 12660/1). But one should also wonder whether, after the slap in the face of 5 February, which caused great upsets at the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12654/3), and with sanctions against Russia to be discussed the ‘Foreign Affairs’ Council of Monday 22 February, the EU would be prepared to go live on worldwide television to hand Mr Putin the gift of a decisive political victory, by accepting Sputnik V – an unconventional remedy that may, to top it all off, put some of our population off getting the vaccine, due to suspicions of its containing some well-hidden poison.
And if every member state made its own decision, this would also be a gift to the mini tsar who cut his teeth in the KGB, as dividing Europe has long been central to the Kremlin’s strategy. The Hungary of Viktor Orbán, who also wastes no opportunity in this regard, has already started to administer the Sputnik V vaccine, having rushed through its approval for use in the country under an emergency procedure.
Renaud Denuit