It was supposed to be the shot that took over the world. Russia's Sputnik vaccine was registered earlier than almost all other competitors, and Moscow was one of the first cities to have a vaccination campaign. Yet Sputnik is now lagging behind in the vaccination markets, with a low takeup rate within Russia and most countries not prioritizing Sputnik. The war in Ukraine has further dampened the prospects of the vaccine on the international politics. This is despite Sputnik being comparable in efficacy and safety with other similar shots. Is it a victim of international politics or of Russia's own disinformation campaign?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uBS21Jcyld6CydqwL2vTZwa2x5uri9jS2wRBKFi1uAE/edit?usp=sharing

In 2021, Rosstat, the official statistics agency of Russia, announced that the country’s natural population, minus migration, declined by more than a million people. The main reason, unsurprisingly, is the COVID-19 pandemic. With nearly one million excess deaths over the past two years, the statistics show just the severe impact of the past two years of the coronavirus pandemic on the Russian people, as well as how much the Russian government has obscured their failure to manage the crisis.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wNLT6pOOdE3o1CPTy7aGD-0Untc54ZEe91_Kg6HMIaE/edit?usp=sharing

In 1979, a secretive lab in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk accidentally released anthrax into the morning air, killing at least 67 people and countless other animals. The problem is, the Soviet Union was not supposed to have this anthrax. This was the single worst biological leak ever, one that almost exposed the Soviet's illegal biological weapons program. It was just bad meat from private butchers, the authorities claimed. It was not until 1992 onwards that the truth about the lab and the Russian biological weapons program would slowly leak out.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JDfwEiPdagop44-2Mehheu86JAh7vC7iEGy90_mKg3Q/edit?usp=sharing