That was the statement made by President Zelenskyy on February 8 at the all-Ukraine Forum “Ukraine-30. Coronavirus: Challenges and Answers”.

The President was quoted as saying, “There’s no confirmation from the World Health Organization and leading European and world experts that the Sputnik-V vaccine gives a positive result. Citizens of Ukraine are human beings and definitely not rabbits, excuse me for such a comparison. We have no right to experiment on them”.

Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine would negotiate the issue of vaccine supplies only with the world’s leading producers of vaccines that have shown maximum efficiency.

The President told journalists that the best way to convince the world of the safety of the produced vaccine is to conduct the nation-wide vaccination of the population of the country where this particular vaccine has been manufactured.

Unfortunately, Ukraine does not have its own vaccine. Russia has it. And it is good for its people. The population of Russia is almost 140 million people. Before offering its vaccine to us, they’d better provide their own population with vaccination. Then it would be about treatment, vaccination and not about politics”, said the head of Ukrainian state.

Thanks to the initiative of COVAX, medical doctors and nurses of Ukraine will get the first vaccines against COVID-19 already this month. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised during her online presentation at the forum “Ukraine-30” that by this summer Ukraine was going to get additional millions of doses of the vaccines. In her words, all vaccines from the European Union are safe and effective. And they have been tested by the European Medicines Agency. “The European Union is on Ukraine’s side as it has always been particularly during difficult moments of your new history. We are all one European family”, said Ursula von der Leyen.

 Meanwhile, Russia conducts an information campaign against the vaccines produced by the American pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, the New York Times reports. The newspaper canvassed a number of researchers and officials of the U.S. State Department as to their opinion about the situation. They believe that the Kremlin is promoting the Russian vaccine Sputnik-V and therefore trying to describe vaccines of its rivals as problematic. As a matter of fact, Moscow is doing such things in different parts of the world but it is particularly active in the countries of Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Thus, the article in the New York Times says that the Spanish-language accounts of the Russian state-controlled media “Russia Today” and “Sputnik” in Twitter and Facebook take part in the campaign against the American vaccines. Pointing to the opinion of the canvassed experts, the newspaper calls everything said by these media disinformation and manipulation.  The U.S. State Department believes that such actions of Russia undermine the collective global effort in struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia has unveiled a wide-spread campaign advocating against the American vaccines in Mexico and Argentina that have concluded with Moscow a contract for purchasing “putnik-V.

Ukraine plans to start a nationwide vaccination in mid February.

In late December, 2020, Ukraine signed a contract with the Chinese company Sinovac for deliveries of 1.9 million doses of its vaccine.

As part of the COVAX global initiative, Ukraine will have to get the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine. The deal has been confirmed for the supplies of 117 thousand doses of this vaccine.

Also, over the first six months of this year, Ukraine is expected to get from 2.2 to 3.7 million doses of the vaccine from the company AstraZeneca.

According to Health Minister Maksim Stepanov, Ukraine has received confirmation from the companies AstraZeneca and Novavax for the delivery of 12 million doses of their vaccines.

Within the next two years, the Health Ministry plans to vaccinate no less than 50% of the population of Ukraine (20 million). In accordance with the Ministry’s plan of the immunization of the population from COVID-19, medical doctors, the elderly and the gravely ill will be the first to be vaccinated.

According to the public opinion poll conducted by the sociological group “Rating” in January, 43% of Ukrainians expressed their readiness to be vaccinated under the condition that inoculation will be free, and 52% of respondents were not ready.

So, whether Ukrainians are ready and willing to be inoculated with a free vaccine remains to be an acute question. In order to form the collective immunity, no less than 60% of the citizens of the country have to be vaccinated.

The newspaper Voice of Ukraine