Russia, China using vaccines as ‘tools of influence’

Russia and China are using their COVID vaccines for propaganda purposes and to extend their influence aboard, France has claimed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. Picture: AFP.

Russia and China are using their COVID vaccines for propaganda purposes and to extend their influence aboard, France has claimed.

“In terms of how it is managed, it (Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine) is more a means of propaganda and aggressive diplomacy than a means of solidarity and health aid,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

The Russian vaccine has come under much criticism in Western countries, while President Vladimir Putin — who received a Sputnik jab on Tuesday — has dismissed the scepticism as “strange”.

French President Emmanuel Macron also claimed his country was facing a “new kind of world war”, pointing to the two powers using their vaccines for “influence”. Mr Le Drian said they were doing this “even before vaccinating their own populations”.

Russia rejected the claims, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying: “We absolutely disagree with the fact that both Russia and China are waging some kind of war.

“And we absolutely disagree with the fact that Russia and China are using the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines as tools of influence.”

As of earlier this week, only about four million of Russia’s 144 million people had received two doses of a vaccine, and another two million a first dose.

AFP