Putin orders mass Covid vaccination in Russia from next week

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday asked deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova to start mass vaccination against the coronavirus next week.

"I know that we have manufactured or will have manufactured more than 2 million doses of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in the next few days, it was the first in the world to be registered. This allows us to start large-scale vaccination, if not a mass one, and of course, as we had agreed, it would concern the two at-risk groups first of all, doctors and teachers," Putin said.

"If you think that we are ready for this step, I would ask you to organise it so that we would start mass vaccination by the end of the next week," the President added.

Golikova confirmed that it would be possible to do so and stressed that vaccination would be voluntary and free of charge.