How Russia shortened the Covid-19 vaccine race to declare victory

For years, Putin has pushed to rebuild Russia's prowess in long-neglected life sciences

Russia’s version of America’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine project is located far from the Kremlin on a sleepy side street on the outskirts of Moscow.
 

Tucked in a sandy-brick building with an office advertising medical tests and a dingy wooden door, it doesn’t look like a cutting-edge medical laboratory. But it was here that, if you believe President Vladimir Putin, Russia won the global race to develop a vaccine against Covid-19.

Praising the developers at the state-run Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Putin declared in August that Russia had registered a shot for public use, making it the