DISINFO: 70 per cent of Ukrainians sure that jabbing has failed over refusal of Sputnik V
SUMMARY
According to a recent opinion poll, about 70 per cent of Ukrainians are sure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has failed the vaccination because he declined the production of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine at a pharmaceutical factory in Kharkiv.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring manipulative narrative from pro-Kremlin media outlets alleging that Ukraine has failed the vaccination campaign because the authorities declined Russia’s Sputnik V and opted for Western vaccines.
Ukraine’s vaccination campaign is really trudging along very slowly, and it is true that Ukraine was offered to produce Sputnik V at a Ukrainian factory. However, the poll showed that only 27.9 per cent said that the Ukrainian authorities were definitely wrong by refusing the Russian vaccine, while 39.8 per cent said that they were rather wrong than right. Therefore, we cannot assert that both groups -- 67.7 per cent -- were blaming the poor vaccination campaign on the refusal of Sputnik V because 39.8 per cent were only hesitant about the issue and not manifestly against the government's actions. As we see, less than one-third of Ukrainians really thought that the use of Sputnik V in Ukraine would have made things much better.
Currently, four vaccines have been certified for use in Ukraine. These are AstraZeneca, Sinovac Biotech, Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax. All of them have been thoroughly tested. As for Sputnik V, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in an interview with Bild that Kyiv would not use it for two reasons:
“It has not passed the necessary stages of clinical trials. And the second reason is that we definitely cannot use a vaccine produced by the country with which we have the ongoing military conflict."
Read more disinformation cases claiming that Sputnik V is the best of all available vaccines and that the West is trying to denigrate it.