Russian special services aware of U.S. plans to wage info attack on Sputnik V vaccine - Kremlin source
MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) - Russia's special services are aware that the United States and its allies are preparing a massive information attack on Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, a high-ranking Kremlin source said.
"Amid growing demand for Russia's Sputnik V vaccine around the world, including in European countries, the U.S. and its allies, according to our special services, are planning to unfold a massive information campaign aimed at forming a biased attitude toward Russian scientific achievements in the area of opposing the spread of Covid-19," the source said.
"The European countries that have granted emergency use authorization to the Sputnik V vaccine, which are Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Montenegro, San Marino, and North Macedonia, have been chosen as the target audience for the anti-Russian information campaign," the source said.
"A scenario of an information attack on Sputnik V is being prepared through controlled nongovernmental organizations and media outlets, aimed at promoting the ideas of the vaccine's inefficiency and danger and simulating mass deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine's use," he said.
"Simultaneously, the U.S. and its allies are planning to circulate 'revealing materials' portraying Russian vaccination and immunology specialists as incompetent," the source said.
"Such actions by the U.S. and its allies indicate their attempts to diminish the contribution made by Russian science to the global fight against the spread of coronavirus, undermine the global community's confidence in our scientific achievements, and hinder their certification by the World Health Organization, as well as reduce the demand for the Sputnik V vaccine, which is currently ranking second in terms of the number of countries that have approved it," the source said.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has said earlier that the Sputnik V vaccine was granted emergency use authorizations in 50 countries around the world with a total population of over 1.3 billion.