MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin hit back on Monday at a European Union official who said its members had absolutely no need for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, describing the comment as strange and suggesting it was at odds with EU citizens’ interests.
EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton had said the EU did not need the Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 and could achieve immunity across the continent using European production.
“It’s a strange statement. We’re not imposing anything on anyone,” Putin said at a televised meeting about Russian vaccines.
“This raises a question: Whose interests are these people defending and representing? The interests of some pharmaceutical companies or those of the citizens of European countries?”
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), whose representatives are set to visit Russia next month, launched a rolling review of Sputnik V earlier this month.
But some European officials have called into question the need for the Russian vaccine.
An EMA official urged EU members this month to refrain from approving Sputnik V at a national level while the agency was still reviewing it.
Putin also held a phone call with European Council President Charles Michel to discuss the possible use of Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19, the Kremlin said on Monday.
Earlier this month, Michel had cast doubt on Russia’s motives for promoting Sputnik V abroad, saying Moscow had organised limited but widely publicised operations to supply the vaccine to other countries.
Putin told Michel that Russia was ready to resume cooperation with the trade bloc but that ties were currently unsatisfactory due to the EU’s confrontational and unconstructive policies at times, the Kremlin said.
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya, Andrey Ostroukh; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)
