Just after teaching Joe Biden how costly it can be to threaten Russia in its backyard, Putin has upped the ante and took the Russian vaccine diplomacy to the USA’s neighbourhood. While many countries including the USA and China tried to discredit Russia for its vaccine and destroy its vaccine diplomacy, Moscow has made sure that its vaccine diplomacy remains in full swing. In the latest Mexico’s top diplomat travelled to Moscow on Sunday for a visit with Russian officials, his office said, amid talks to hammer out plans for Mexico to bottle Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine domestically after delays in shipments.
The Mexican government is aiming to quicken its pace of vaccinations, with just more than 4% of its population of 126 million people fully inoculated. Mexico has registered 214,947 deaths, the fourth most worldwide, and 2,328,391 infections from the pandemic. The government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher. And in its effort to increase inoculation, Russia has become a very interesting partner. Joe Biden has traversed a very faulty foreign policy and given the way in which it has abandoned its allies as well as neighbours even after making over-the-top statements, the coast was clear for Putin to score a major diplomatic goal, in what can be considered America’s backyard.
The first big contest between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin is over. The Russia-Ukraine military tensions are getting diffused, as Moscow has started pulling back troops from the Ukraine border. We have clear results- Putin is the winner, whereas Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have come out looking like losers. Now Putin has brought the contest to the backyard of the USA, in a major change of affairs. Russia under Putin is no longer willing to be confined to its traditional borders and is willing to come to the US neighbourhood if Biden remains egotistical.
Read more: Joe Biden has lost the first big global war that he started. Putin is the clear winner
Mexico’s state-run vaccine manufacturer, Birmex, is working with Russia on a plan to bottle Sputnik V in Mexico, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said last week, just as Argentina produced test batches of the two-shot vaccine. “Birmex is working jointly with Russian institutions so that Mexico can bottle the vaccine,” Ebrard told Russian media outlets on Friday, “There is already significant progress.”
Health ministry official Ruy Lopez told reporters on Sunday that the government’s aim is to ramp up the distribution of Sputnik V not only in Mexico but also in other parts of Latin America. This is very significant, given that by coming to the rescue of Mexico, Russia will be able to gain goodwill in the whole of Latin America, which the Chinese Communist Party has been eyeing for a very long time.
Mexico’s Health Ministry reported in late February that it planned to receive 7.4 million Sputnik V doses by April, followed by an additional 16.6 million shots in May. Mexico has agreed to purchase a total of 24 million doses. Given Mexico has put high hopes in Russia and the Russian Federation is responding in kind, means that there is a big geopolitical game in play, and as one would predict, Joe Biden is oblivious of all this, as he is busy pushing socialist agendas back home in the USA.