The last three months have seen a litany of humiliations for Brussels as its leaders try to procure and roll out much needed vaccines across the continent. Whether it’s been Ursula von der Leyen almost erecting a hard border in Ireland or Handelsblatt being briefed misinformation from a misread excel table, impounded meningitis jabs in Italy or doctors forced to destroy unwanted vaccines in Germany, every week seems to bring fresh ignominy and embarrassment. But now a new low appears to have been reached with today’s news that France and Germany are in negotiations to buy Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine from their implacable opponent Vladimir Putin.
Putin of course was the man who annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, whose officials had sanctions slapped on them by Brussels a mere four weeks ago after Alexei Navalny’s arrest and who once brought his black lab Koni to a meeting with Merkel to terrify her in 2007.
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