Ukraine not included in list of priority countries for receiving vaccines against COVID-19, but guided by principle of its safety – President's Office
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine had lost its position in the world and Europe in terms of the priority of countries for receiving the vaccine against COVID-19, but despite this, the state "primarily bases its decision on choosing a safe vaccine," the press service of the President's Office said.
"I'll try to explain to you everything that's going on with the vaccine right now. I faced the fact that Ukraine's position in the world and in Europe in terms of the priority of countries has been lost. We are not on the list of countries that receive the vaccine first. That is why here we must be, so to speak, acrobats in politics, in order to somehow manage to get into the priority of countries, we must be very flexible, diplomatic," Zelensky said in an interview with the New York Times.
According to him, "that it is the United States and the United Kingdom that could have a very strong influence today on including Ukraine in the list of top-priority European countries that receive the vaccine first."
In addition, the president stressed that the issue of purchasing the U.S. vaccine Pfizer could be another geopolitical blow. "This issue could be another geopolitical blow, it will be another strong information war on the part of Russia, and everything depends on the United States," Zelesnky believes.
"Ukraine will save its people, Ukraine will fight for our partners to give us a vaccine that has been confirmed - Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca. This is what has been confirmed. We understand that some of these companies have plants all over Europe and even in the Russian Federation, as far as I know, so the issue here is primarily about the quality of a vaccine," Zelensky said.