President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia was facing challenges scaling up production of its main COVID-19 vaccine due to problems with equipment availability, but hoped to start mass vaccinations by the end of the year. Russia is currently testing its main experimental vaccine, known as Sputnik V, on 40,000 people in Moscow and outside of the trial has already begun vaccinating frontline workers, but only in small numbers. Earlier estimates by Russian officials of how many doses Russia could produce this year have been cut back, from 30 million to just over 2 million, with trade and industry minister Denis Manturov recently citing challenges in scaling up production of the vaccine.
