First greeted with scepticism, experts have since been convinced of the effectiveness of the Russian coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik V, with positive results published in The Lancet medical journal on Tuesday. The development represents a scientific and political victory for Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Putin at the forefront
From the first weeks of the pandemic, the Russian president ordered the scientific, political and military apparatus of the country to work in overdrive to develop the world’s first Covid vaccine — even if that meant taking shortcuts.
Last spring, Alexander Gintsburg, the director of the state-run Gamaleya research centre that developed Sputnik V, boasted of having personally injected himself with an experimental version of the jab.
A few months later, in mid-August, Putin announced the approval of the world’s first coronavirus vaccine. With the shot at that point…