Sputnik vaccine warns Europe: Kremlin lures with one hand, covert operation with the other

With the balance of the pandemic in Lithuania increasing and remaining very fragile, Lithuania continues to place all its hopes on the coronavirus vaccination program. Yet even after the country’s leaders had been vaccinated this week to clear doubts about AstraZeneca’s confidence, ministers, Seimas members, and hopes of protecting 70 percent of vaccines by mid-summer or even late. of the summer. the country’s population is viewed with skepticism.

It all depends on the promises made by the Western manufacturer to supply vaccines, and this process has stalled and disappointed not only Lithuania but other EU countries as well.

Additionally, an active Russian propaganda campaign undermining the AstraZeneca vaccine and praising Sputnik V appears to have worked in at least a few countries, such as Hungary, Slovakia, where Russian vaccines are being resisted, and the Czech Republic, Italy and Germany are seriously considering the use of Sputnik. V “. And while the European Medicines Agency (EVA), which is investigating the Russian vaccine, has yet to give its last word, and the EU has already expressed skepticism about Sputnik V (and has received a strong response from Russia), the The Kremlin is showing that it no longer takes the EU seriously.

According to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “there were no relations with the EU” that supposedly broke these relations, and Russia’s partners remained only individual European countries that wanted to pursue their national interests. “Such an eloquent phrase seems only to confirm the warnings of experts that Russia seems to be seriously determined to drive a wedge in the hearts of Europe.

Continuation of the KGB operation “Infection”?

“This is Russia’s usual strategy: weaken the West, divide the EU, increase its influence in the world,” Marius Laurinavičius, an analyst at the Vilnius Institute of Political Analysis, spared no criticism of Russia. According to him, what Russia has been doing since the beginning of the pandemic, I call the new operation “Infection”, a great operation during the Cold War, which uses the HIV virus to blame Western countries, especially the United States, of creating the virus in the 1990s. The fact that AIDS is supposedly a job of the United States government and that the KGB spread similar conspiracy theories, and later, one of the Soviet intelligence services , and later Russian, Yevgeny Primakov recognized that role of Soviet security.

However, according to M. Laurinavičius, the current Russian operation is even more complicated: it combines disinformation, influence operations, attempts to increase influence in the world using both the Sputnik V vaccine and the division of the West.

And this has been going on for some time, from Kremlin-instigated conspiracy theories about the allegedly stolen shipment of masks or even vaccines to the United States to propaganda operations to transport “humanitarian aid” to the United States and Italy. It later turned out that some of it was just life threatening.

“Part of that operation is successful and Russian agents are being used in the West, some of them are in Western governments,” Laurinavičius is convinced.

He recalled that Sputnik V has not yet been approved by the EVA, and that the generally accepted publication Lancet, which published a study on the Russian vaccine, was criticized for the lack of reliability of the data. It was noted that Russia was in a hurry to pass Sputnik and did not conduct all the necessary tests, and it is now offered and even broadcast to Western countries, although Russia itself has admitted that only 40 million out of 144 million will. get vaccinated in early summer. its population.

“Is that what we are talking about? We are currently forced to discuss a vaccine whose reliability or effectiveness is in doubt. And if Russia tries to steal data on Western vaccines with one hand, it carries out a disinformation campaign against AstraZeneca. – What is approved and offers its vaccine not approved by the other, perhaps you should think? ”The expert did not hide his doubts.

He acknowledged that the examples from Hungary and other countries only prove one way in which a lazy approach to the use of Sputnik is not primarily a Russian problem, but a European problem that did not ensure a fluid supply of Western vaccines and was unprepared for possible attacks from information. of the Kremlin.

“Russia is doing what we allow it. The problem is not in the capacity, but in the desire. Looking at the countries that we have to the west, they do not want to do anything, they accept that disinformation is carried out with one hand, and for some reason we have to consider Sputnik, which has not yet been approved as one of the alternatives. ”, M. Laurinavičius pointed out.

I did not hold on to the kremlin

At the time, Lukas Andriukaitis, associate director of the Atlantic Council’s digital forensic investigation laboratory, which had been analyzing the Kremlin’s propaganda trends from various sources for several years, noted that the connection between Sputnik and AstraZeneca had been particularly recent.

“Using social media analysis tools, we can see which posts or articles are of the most interest, that is, the triggering of misinformation in AstraZeneca, which Sputnik V is trying to present as an alternative. We see that the Kremlin is using this quite well. chaos, “emphasized L. Andriukaitis.

According to him, Russia is taking advantage of the fact that there is not such a skeptical attitude towards the Kremlin’s rhetoric and actions in the West as in the post-Soviet countries, so that Sputnik V can be accepted there as a normal alternative. Also, the “let’s not confuse vaccines with politics” approach is growing.

And if in Lithuania, with the exception of some regions, this can be resisted, then in the West, according to the specialist, neutral naivety is not lacking, when Sputnik V becomes an alternative. And Lithuania’s attitude remains skeptical.

“Lithuania does not intend to buy the Sputnik V vaccine. We only rely on vaccines that have been tested, tested and manufactured by Western companies that meet Euro-Atlantic criteria,” said Chancellor Gabrielius Landsbergis. But still, if the EVA confirms that Sputnik V is a safe vaccine, so what?

“It just came to our knowledge then. And Lithuania’s position should not change, because it is not about the reliability and efficacy of the Sputnik V vaccine,” said M. Laurinavičius, noting that the political part is more important: if we we oppose hybrid warfare or surrender.

He disagreed even with the picturesque comparisons in the public sphere that if the Sputnik V vaccine were approved by the EVA, there would be no obstacle to using the vaccine as a weapon against a more dangerous enemy, the coronavirus. Similar to the Lithuanian partisans who fought the occupiers with Soviet weapons or any of Russia’s enemies who fought Kalashnikov machine guns obtained from it. According to M. Laurinavičius, this is a forced narrative.

“This message reinforces the Kremlin’s narrative that we now supposedly have a common enemy,” Laurinavičius said, recalling that the Sputnik campaign even used the narrative of World War II and the allies against Hitler’s Germany.

Second, the partisans did not buy weapons from the Soviets, so they did not finance the war against them. If we buy Sputnik from Russia (and there are no other ways), we would be financing the war against us. And third, the partisans did not trust the Soviet word: they tested the weapons themselves. And now we are forced to trust the Kremlin. This creates an atmosphere of trust and calm in general, ”said M. Laurinavičius.

In his opinion, there is no alternative that we do not have enough Western alternatives, because even if Sputnik were to pass, it would only happen in May, and when it comes to the supply of vaccines, everything would move forward even later, when Lithuania will. be vaccinated.