Bavaria wanted to secure 2.5 million doses of the Russian vaccine “Sputnik V” during the Corona pandemic at a price of $19.90 per can secure. This reports the “Welt am Sonntag” (“WamS”). One dose of AstraZenecaalso a vector vaccine, cost the federal government only 2.30 euros. Even the novel mRNA vaccine from BioNTech is 15.50 euros would have been cheaper.
On April 7, 2021, Söder announced that Bavaria would buy the vaccine. A corresponding declaration of intent According to the report, the agreement was signed on the same day with the German branch of the Russian pharmaceutical company “R-Pharm” and the Russian sovereign wealth fund “RDIF”.
Against this background, we demand to know from Markus Söder personally where the Sputnik V connection came from.
Constantine von Notz, Member of the Bundestag for the Greens
The German branch of the Russian pharmaceutical company R-Pharm was to produce “Sputnik” at the site in Illertissen, Bavaria. In the event that these capacities cannot be ramped up quickly enough, “sourcing the vaccine imported by R-Pharm from Russia can be considered,” the letter of intent said. The “WamS” points out that that Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin was already preparing his attack on Ukraine at that time.
The chairwoman of the Green parliamentary group, Katharina Schulzetold the newspaper: “I wonder why Markus Söder wanted to pay a Russian company a comparatively high price back then.” Söder’s decision was “geopolitically fundamentally wrong,” said Schulze.
The Green Bundestag member Konstantin von Notz sees a highly problematic proximity of the CSU to the Putin regime. “Against this background, we demand that Markus Söder personally find out where the Sputnik V connection came from. With regard to the concrete plans to procure the Russian vaccine, the Bavarian State Chancellery must immediately come clean, create the greatest possible transparency and present all relevant processes.”
The Bavarian Ministry of Health However, it stated that at the time of the negotiations in 2021, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “not foreseeable”. Immediately after the invasion became known in February 2022, the Free State distanced itself from the declaration of intent. From March 2022, the RDIF was then on the EU sanctions list.
As the report goes on to say, The state government has so far refused to grant access to the documents relating to the Sputnik orderThere is no “legitimate interest”, according to the reasoning from Munich.
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On the question, how the federal government was informed about the Bavarian “Sputnik” negotiationsthe Bavarian Ministry of Health announced that it had been in “constant and close contact” with the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) during the pandemic.
According to the report, the BMG stated that it had not been involved in the Bavarian government’s plans to order the vaccine. the then Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU) answered. (lem)
