The Russian Embassy responded today to Rama’s accusation that they had done a “ridiculous provocation” to the Albanian government in offering Sputnik-V vaccine, by saying that they couldn’t understand Rama’s reaction. “It’s difficult to understand why the honourable Prime Minister of Albania, mr. Edi Rama, was so upset by the comment made by the Russian Embassy […] we only reacted to the re-tweet made by the Prime Minister’s Director of Communication, mr. Endri Fuga, regarding the start of the vaccination against Covid-19 in EU countries, and also to the declaration made by the Prime Minister himself during a press conference on 24th of December, where he talked about the difficulties in finding as quickly as possible the number of vaccines needed for the Albanian population.”
The Russian Embassy continued by adding that their interest was only that of showing that the applications for the Russian vaccine, are opened to any interested country, including Albania. “We are sorry that the goodwill of Russia, expressed publicly, is being interpreted as a provocation,” continued the statement by the Embassy.
Yesterday Prime Minister Rama considered the Russian Embassy’s offer to negotiate the Sputnik-V vaccine as inappropriate, by saying that “I thought it was a meme […] this is a ridiculous provocation, and it is not ok for a serious country such as Russia, to be ridiculous through such provocations, and neither it is ok for an important Embassy, such as the Russian one, to act like if it was a section of a comedy show.”
