'Don't wait on west': MP from Ukraine's largest opposition party urges Kiev to swallow pride & buy Russian coronavirus vaccine

A Ukrainian opposition MP has called for Kiev to start a dialogue with Moscow to purchase the Russian Covid-19 vaccine. Viktor Medvedchuk is an influential member of the pro-Russia and eurosceptic 'Opposition Platform' group.

Writing on the party website, Medvedchuk said he believes the country should buy the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, instead of making deals with Western companies for vaccines which don't exist yet.

"Russia has already received applications from 50 countries, including from the CIS, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America," Medvedchuk wrote. "If the Ukrainian government is going to save the citizens of our country, we need to negotiate with the manufacturers of this vaccine."

Medvedchuk, a former presidential chief of staff, urged the Ukrainian leadership to stop building "castles in the air" and to start taking "real action."

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Worrying times in Kiev as Ukraine hits daily record of Covid-19 cases, while infections in Russia also continue to rise

As of October 1, Ukraine has confirmed 213,028 cases of Covid-19. The country is struggling with an uptick in Covid-19 cases and, last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the country is being hit by a second wave.

"Cases are spiking all around the world now, and Ukraine is no exception; the case count keeps growing," Zelensky said. "Now, we have 3,000 new cases every day. Sadly, this is the second coronavirus wave in Ukraine."

On August 11, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had registered Sputnik V, the world's first Covid-19 vaccine, due to be available to the general public from January 2021. Created by Moscow's Gamaleya Institute for Epidemiology and Microbiology, it is currently in its third trial phase, involving 40,000 volunteers from Moscow.

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