Kremlin is busy leveraging diplomatic channels, state-controlled media and networks of supportive and alternative media outlets to support its narrative of Sputnik V vaccine supremacy. A simultaneous massive, vulgar and misleading demotion of other vaccines, especially Western like Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca now roll like wall-to-wall banner streams. At the same time, any critique pointing to the lack of trial results and transparency in deploying Sputnik V is dismissed as Russophobic reaction and portrayed as a Western waged “vaccine war, says an article published by the European External Action Service on its specialized website EuVsDisinfo, IPN reports.
The authors say that for the pro-Kremlin media the early 2021 has already brought what it lacked last year: a full-blown offensive with a ferocity smelling a bit like a Cold War and ideological competition. “It is a one-sided offensive. Noteworthy is that this rhetoric is drummed up in the pro-Kremlin outlets and broadcast globally while a ‘mirror’-rhetoric is not-returned from governments in countries of the big COVID-vaccine producer companies (US, Germany, UK, etc.) The ‘battleground’ has heated up especially in countries of the Eastern Partnership: Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia offer easily accessible media markets. To a lesser extent in Azerbaijan and Belarus, where tougher media control by local governments set limits,” runs the article.
This notes that across the Eastern Partnership countries, pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets tend to duplicate same narratives as in the main Russian media, but with some country-by-country variations. The two most prominent narratives promote the safety and efficiency of the Sputnik V vaccine, while denigrating the safety and efficiency of Western vaccines, in particular the Pfizer/BioNTech.
In Moldova, most pro-Kremlin disinformation focuses on promoting the safety and efficacy of the Sputnik V vaccine while disparaging the safety of Western vaccines. Other disinformation spreads anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. When the EU is mentioned, disinformation actors present it as preparing ‘registers’ (vaccination passports) of those who refuse vaccine while citizens are skeptical. A few articles have accused the EU of launching an ‘information war’ against the Sputnik V vaccine in order to defend Western pharmaceutical companies.
