Riley Wagaman is an American writer who lives in Moscow. He was until recently a senior editor at RTTV. He's lived in Moscow since 2013, and he's written some piercing articles, not only on topics that I haven't read before, but anything like this before. I d say he's probably the world's expert on the Sputnik vaccine, as far as anybody's concerned, and also the strange and surprising links between Russian oligarchs and the World Economic Forum. I wanted to have him on because he has unusual views about all these things, and has an unusual knowledge base. In this episode, we talk about how Putin got the vaccine, how it came about, and why it matters so much to the Russian people. We also talk about why Putin should get the vaccine and why he should get it, and how the vaccine was developed and tested in Russia. And why it s a good idea to have a vaccine that s safe and effective. This episode was produced and edited by Alex Blumberg. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Haley Shaw. Additional music was written and performed by Ian Dorsch, and produced by Mark Phillips, and additional mixing and mastering by Matthew Boll, and the rest of our mixing software is by Kevin McLeod, and we did some additional mixing on this episode was done by Bobby Lord, and his excellent editing and mixing and mixing on the mixing and editing by Matthew Kuchner, and so much other editing and mastering and mixing is by Matthew McAfee, and all other mastering and mastering assistance is provided by Matthew Coughlan, and a lovely background music is courtesy of Haley Shaw, and Rachel Adams, and they are a great thanks to a good lord, and you can do a good job, and thanks and the excellent work is excellent work by Anne-Anne, and this is a good work and we also does it all is amazing and all of this is so good, and it also is so much more than that is amazing, we also is wonderful and we really needs to hear it and they do it so good and they also can do it and we thank you and they really really does it and also they also really is really good and you also they really can also really can really really is that really is it really is this and they can also they are really good, really they really is all of that and they thank them and they're really really they also they do that, etc.
00:00:00.000Hey everybody, my guest today is Riley Wagaman, who is an American writer who lives in Moscow.
00:00:06.000He was until recently a senior editor at RTTV. He's lived in Moscow since 2013.
00:00:16.000And he's written some piercing articles, not only on, that I haven't read, but anything like this before, about Russia's Sputnik vaccine.
00:00:27.000I'd say you're probably the world's expert on that as far as anybody's concerned.
00:00:32.000And also the links, the very peculiar and surprising links between Russian oligarchs and the World Economic Forum.
00:00:41.000And I wanted to have you on to give, because you have unusual views about all these things and you have an unusual knowledge base.
00:00:49.000So tell us a little bit about how you ended up in Moscow.
00:00:54.000Well, I started my writing career after college, worked in Washington, D.C., writing about U.S. politics, got extremely burnt out within a year, and I just sort of ended up migrating.
00:01:07.000At first, I was in the Czech Republic, and I just sort of kept migrating east, and I found myself actually first in Bashkortostan, which is a republic in Russia, and I did a little bit of I did what all young Americans do when they don't know what to do.
00:01:44.000So I ended up just moving back to Moscow and starting to write again, just on Russia-related issues.
00:01:51.000And just as an American, I thought that I had some value to add to that debate and discussion.
00:01:57.000So I've been here basically ever since.
00:02:00.000Well, give us the briefing on the Sputnik vaccine.
00:02:03.000The Sputnik vaccine is really a fascinating drug, especially because I feel like, especially in the West, you almost hear nothing about What's really behind this?
00:02:20.000And it's such a fascinating, just the sort of chronology, if you trace it back to where it really started.
00:02:27.000It's interesting because you actually can, I would say maybe where it was sort of born was with the Ebola crisis, which is actually a lot of the drugs that we see now, like remdesivir, right, go back to The Ebola, Ebola, Africa.
00:02:44.000And basically what happened was you have this center is called the Gamaleya Institute, which is run by the Russian health ministry.
00:02:50.000And in 2015, they went into Africa and they said, we're going to make the magic serum to cure Ebola.
00:03:13.000And so when COVID came around, they basically just took this vaccine and said, "Okay, now we're just gonna reconfigure it and it's for COVID and it works beautifully and it's safe and effective." And it came out in record time, We're talking about they announced, I believe that they announced that they started working on it in, I want to say, early March.
00:03:40.000Phase one trial started in June and it was approved in August.
00:03:43.000So, I mean, it's not dissimilar to the other vaccines on the market, but it was done in such an incredible timeframe and with so little scrutiny and so little transparency.
00:03:56.000And when you just get into how this vaccine, like who was really behind it, the incredible links to big pharma, it's just like a whole, you could write a whole book I remember Putin took it publicly to show the public it was safe.
00:04:12.000Well, so Putin held off for many months, actually.
00:04:16.000Interestingly enough, when he first announced that he got vaccinated, for some reason he didn't disclose which vaccine it was, because at the time there were several options available.
00:04:24.000I think that Russia also allows a few of the Chinese vaccines, and also Russia has these It has like Epivac Corona and Covivac, which are these very strange, they're sort of these like niche vaccines that were made in small batches that were barely ever tested and just sort of The whole thing, I mean, the whole vaccine scene in Russia is very, very peculiar.
00:04:46.000Yeah, and then with actually a funny story about Putin is that, you know, they started doing this nasal spray, right?
00:04:56.000And so Putin allegedly volunteered to get this vaccine.
00:05:01.000And when he spoke about getting this vaccine as part of the trial, he said that it was administered to him in a powder, which doesn't make any sense because it's a liquid.
00:05:11.000Why is Vladimir Putin talking about putting powder up his nose?
00:05:34.000We complain a lot about the lack of transparency in this country, the lack of good surveillance systems and data collection, but at least some of that is public.
00:05:49.000Yeah, it's such a good question because, well, for example, you have the VAERS system in the United States, which obviously is deeply flawed, but the advantage is that it'll show you that there's a problem, right?
00:06:00.000Russia doesn't have a VAERS. There's zero transparency in Russia.
00:06:07.000In fact, according to the Russian government, there has not been a single recorded serious post-vaccination complication in the country.
00:06:17.000It's incredible the stories I can tell you.
00:06:19.000The Russian government recently was asked by a lawmaker, so a member of the State Duma, like a member of Congress, that would be the analog of the United States, He said, can we please have the most recent phase three trial data for Sputnik V? And they said, we cannot release that because it's a trade secret.
00:06:39.000We can't give you the most recent data because it's a trade secret.
00:06:44.000There was another request, I believe also from another, a different lawmaker, saying, can we just see how many people who took Sputnik V and died?
00:06:53.000Like, how many deaths, whether it was connected to the vaccine or not, can we just, do we have this data?
00:06:58.000And they said, we can't release this data because it would be inappropriate and it would discourage vaccination.
00:07:04.000These are official statements from the Russian government.
00:07:07.000Are they pressuring people to take the vaccine like they do here?
00:07:10.000Yeah, so this is also another big, I think, misconception.
00:07:13.000A lot of people think that a vaccine was totally voluntary in Russia, which is not true at all.
00:07:18.000So the first compulsory vaccination policy was actually imposed here in Moscow in June 2021, and it was basically 60% of your workforce from certain sectors, like catering and different sectors of The economy had to be vaccinated.
00:09:31.000You know, their protests, their letters to the editor, social media.
00:09:36.000Because in our country, we're dealing with censorship, so it's hard for people to even express their displeasure.
00:09:42.000There's a huge amount of censorship in Russia on this topic, I would say.
00:09:46.000So basically what's happened is there's media censorship, but also there's professional censorship.
00:09:51.000So for example, healthcare workers, anyone working in healthcare is threatened with losing their medical license or getting in trouble with authorities if they speak out against, you know, if they raise any concerns, etc., etc.
00:10:04.000And there's a prominent group here in Russia called Doctors for Truth.
00:10:07.000And I'm sure, you know, there's sort of organizations like this all around the world who have held conferences and they even invite the authorities to come to these conferences and discuss these issues with.
00:10:26.000And there's actually lots of evidence that it's actually quite dangerous.
00:10:29.000For example, because there's no VAERS in Russia, they have created there was a group that created sort of unofficial VAERS where people would submit possible deaths linked to the vaccine using media reports and they would try to confirm it and they would list on this website.
00:10:42.000The Russian government shut this website down.
00:10:45.000They pulled the plug on it and so now it's not hosted in Russia anymore.
00:10:48.000They had to move it out of the country.
00:10:51.000So there's a huge, huge problem with just being able to talk about these issues openly and Russians primarily use Telegram to talk about it.
00:11:02.000There's very popular Telegram channels on the internet that are devoted to reporting adverse events.
00:11:08.000So yeah, I think it's very similar to the United States.
00:11:11.000And so how do you know that there is widespread displeasure?
00:11:17.000Is it from reading the Telegram account or are there actually demonstrations and Facebook or whatever?
00:11:25.000So I would say that unlike maybe other parts of the world where you'll see demonstrations in Russia, the way that they've been resisting is just they don't abide by the COVID rules.
00:11:36.000For example, a lot of them have actually been rolled back at this point, but No one really took the mask rules seriously unless they were strictly enforced in like the Moscow metro or in certain places.
00:11:51.000And when you would speak to people about the vaccine, I mean, in Russia, it was possible to even buy fake QR codes, you know.
00:11:59.000And people would take QR codes from like dishwashers and irons and use them to like get into buildings because they would just, you know, look at the QR code and say, okay, you're vaccinated and you get in.
00:12:12.000I think it's just, it was a different, you know, different culture, different way of sort of resisting the tyranny.
00:12:18.000Most countries, we know what the death per million rate is.
00:12:23.000For example, in the United States, it's 2,800 per million.
00:12:27.000In some African countries, like Nigeria, it's as low as 14 per million.
00:12:35.000I think China says that it's around 10 per million.
00:12:41.000You know, I don't even, it's been so long since I've even looked at that data, but I'll tell you this, Russia has seen record mortality, a high mortality level that hasn't been seen since World War II. Now, it's much, much lower than it was in 1945, but we're talking about Mortality that's worse than even in the 90s when you had total socioeconomic collapse.
00:13:01.000There was a recent report I saw just last week saying that the number of registered pensioners, so people who are officially receiving pensions from the Russian government, the number has decreased the most since the early 90s.
00:13:14.000So we're talking about somehow, and I have multiple theories on how this happened, but the Russian government was pumping records amount of money into healthcare when COVID hit.
00:13:24.000I mean, they really poured the cash in.
00:13:27.000And yet we're seeing record mortality, many, many credible reports of, in general, healthcare just going straight down the toilet.
00:13:34.000And I think that it's connected in part with the vaccine, but also because what happened was, like in many other parts of the world, is that they canceled routine care.
00:13:45.000They said, okay, now, you know, regular checkups and screenings are canceled because we're so overwhelmed.
00:13:55.000I think it's had a huge impact on health.
00:13:58.000And also, the problem is that you have these situations in Russia, they have these things called red zones, which is where the severe COVID cases are sent to the special ward in the hospital where no one, family members can't go see them, no one can touch them.
00:14:11.000And if you're just this If you're alone, you're an elderly person who doesn't have any family, who's going to look after you?
00:15:34.000I don't know the number of vaccines, but, and they're also, they have like the, what is it called, the Montu reactions that you have to do sometimes.
00:15:42.000For example, you know, I have a son here in Russia and he had to do one of those to, you know, make sure they doesn't have TB and they do things like that.
00:15:50.000I don't think it's as intense as it is in the United States, but they definitely have it.
00:15:56.000What's actually very interesting in Russia is before COVID hit, they, I mean, they talk about, first of all, putting The COVID vaccines on the schedule.
00:16:04.000In the last several years, they keep bringing up how they want to put more and more vaccines on the COVID schedule.
00:16:11.000Actually, really interesting is one of the big pushers for sort of increasing vaccinations in Russia across the board, not just with COVID, is this woman, Veronica Skorzova, who actually was in your book on Fauci.
00:16:24.000She's the former health minister of Russia, and she was on this global preparedness monitoring board.
00:16:31.000with Fauci and you know this board was funded by Gates and you know has ties to the WHO and the World Trade Organization and she played a really integral part in the Ebola vaccine that later became Sputnik V and she's also played a really active role in basically just pushing vaccines in general 10 years into the past and straight up through today.
00:16:56.000What is the relationship between Russia and particularly the oligarchs you've written about this and the World Economic Forum and These global quasi-governmental agencies like SAPI and CAVI and the Global Pandemic Preparedness Board All of these quasi-governmental organizations that
00:17:27.000were created by Gates and the pharmaceutical industry to push vaccines.
00:17:32.000What is the relationship between the Russian government and the Russian oligarchs?
00:17:37.000Well, I think the best example is, again, going back to Sputnik V, serves as a perfect illustration of this very strange connection between the World Economic Forum and also this sort of global vision for global health and Russia.
00:17:53.000Basically, one of the main sponsors of Sputnik V is this guy named Herman Gref, who is the CEO of Sparebank.
00:18:24.000The first is that I'm going to start giving out grants to develop COVID drugs.
00:18:29.000And the second one is that I'm going to start developing facial recognition technology that recognizes people even when they're wearing masks.
00:18:38.000For some reason, that was a big priority for him, right?
00:18:41.000And he was like, our Chinese friends have already done this so well, so we're going to consult with them and see what they say.
00:18:52.000So what ended up happening is that Hermann Gref and Speerbank poured money into what later became Sputnik V. He teamed up with Alexander Ginsberg, who is the head of the Gamalea Center.
00:19:04.000Hermann Gref claims that Speerbank helped with the production and also with technology transfer of Sputnik V. And he also claims that he was one of the first people in the world to receive the vaccine.
00:19:16.000He says that he received it in April 2020.
00:19:21.000To put that in context, the first official phase one trial, which was just a few dozen people, was in June.
00:19:28.000And this is like one of the richest, most important guys in Russia.
00:19:31.000And he's claiming that he took this experimental vaccine months before, we're talking about two months before it was even conceived, like two months after it was even conceived, right?
00:19:40.000What's really interesting, too, is that in May of 2020, So, a month after Hamon Gref takes this highly experimental Sputnik V, not even called Sputnik V yet, Spearbank creates a subsidiary called Immunotechnologies.
00:19:56.000And this sister company is basically charged with handling the production and distribution of Sputnik V. So, we're talking about Russia's bank.
00:20:24.000And what people also need to understand, I mean, another really fascinating link here, getting back to the World Economic Forum, is that the main, later the main financer of Sputnik V was the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which is Russia's sovereign wealth fund.
00:20:37.000And it's run by this guy named Kirill Dmitriev.
00:20:40.000Kirill Dmitriev is a really interesting fellow.
00:20:42.000He is actually, I believe he's Ukrainian by birth.
00:21:05.000Just so people know, that's Claude Schwab's in-house education group with Justin Trudeau and Macron and all of these people who took us down this path to tyranny.
00:21:18.000Here's another really fascinating thing about the whole Sputnik V, World Economic Forum, Russian Direct Investment Fund link, is that Very shortly after Sputnik V really came into existence, so this was in July 2020,
00:21:34.000so a month before the drug was announced, Kirill Dmitriev, our young global leader, alum, announces that the Russian government has partnered with our farm, which is a Russian pharmaceutical, which is going to be creating AstraZeneca's vaccine.
00:21:52.000So basically what ended up happening is that the Russian government is invested in AstraZeneca's vaccine and it's produced here in Russia and it's exported and right now they're actually trying to register it and what people don't realize is that the original plan was to create a combined vaccine,
00:22:09.000a cocktail, which was one dose Sputnik V and one dose AstraZeneca and they speak about this openly and they had this whole cooperation agreement with AstraZeneca that came out in December 2020 and They later even announced they were glowing about doing joint trials with Moderna and Pfizer.
00:22:28.000You know, this whole idea that there's like this vaccine war and that Russia was being treated so unfairly, I think is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
00:22:37.000I mean, obviously there was some competitiveness here because, you know, you got rubles that you can lose, but there was very, very close cooperation.
00:22:44.000And a perfect example of this, again, going back to July, is that there was this rumor that Russia had hacked We're good to go.
00:23:14.000Let's talk for a minute about the Ukraine.
00:23:16.000You know, everybody in our country is kind of wondering what is happening in Russia.
00:23:21.000Has the Ukraine crisis affected Putin's popularity?
00:23:27.000He's become much more popular in Russia.
00:23:38.000What I would say about the situation, though, in Ukraine, though, is with sort of being careful, it's a weird situation because in Russia, the Russian media cannot describe what's happening as a war.
00:23:49.000They have to refer to it as a special military operation.
00:23:53.000So if you refer to it as anything else, you can actually get fined.
00:23:57.000And if you are, you know, if you have multiple strikes, they can actually...
00:24:02.000Take you off the air or close down your website.
00:24:04.000And that's happened already a few times with some of these few outlets.
00:24:08.000Some of them you would describe as there's theories that they're basically, you know, these sort of outlets that push these Western agendas and, you know, are sketchy to begin with.
00:24:17.000But, you know, I'm against all censorship.
00:24:20.000So I think that it's unfortunate that...
00:24:22.000And of course, obviously, you're having huge censorship in Ukraine, huge censorship in the United States.
00:24:26.000I mean, the way that I see this Personally, it's so sad to see how this conflict has made it so difficult for people to talk to each other about really, really important things.
00:25:17.000We saw with the American press during the run-up to the Iraq War, where anybody who asked common-send questions was vilified and marginalized and gaslighted, and we've overthrown a number of Dictators, we were told we had to go into Syria, and the blowback from that, really, 2 million refugees out of Syria into Europe really destabilized Europe, destroyed democracy in Europe, ended up with Brexit.
00:25:47.000And, you know, we ended up in a war in Afghanistan.
00:25:52.000And again, because of a propaganda drive, it lasted for 20 years, cost $4 trillion, and yielded nothing of interest, nothing of value for the United States, the same as the War Never Act.
00:26:05.000So, you know, we need to be asking questions before we go into wars.
00:26:10.000And it doesn't seem now like any of those questions are being asked or answered.
00:26:15.000Speaking as someone who, I mean, I live in Russia...
00:26:28.000But what I would say is, you know, my concern about this war is that I understand Russia's grievances.
00:26:34.000I think that Russia has a lot of legitimate grievances.
00:26:37.000I think that the way that Russia has been treated is totally hypocritical and even counter, you know, counterproductive and almost, in some ways, sort of suicidal.
00:26:46.000I mean, I see that, in my view, Washington's response to this crisis is making it worse, and that concerns me.
00:26:55.000There's obviously responsibility on Moscow's side as well.
00:26:58.000What concerns me, though, is if I was speaking as someone who lives in Russia and loves Russia, is where's the exit ramp for Russia where The situation after this is better than before, and that's what really worries me because I can see this dragging out for years or sparking something much larger.
00:27:20.000Theoretically, I could see this really morphing into something much larger than a regional conflict.
00:28:01.000We've said that there's going to be...
00:28:02.000And before this started, they did issue this basically warning saying that we reserve the right to respond if this keeps happening.
00:28:10.000With the situation in Donbass, they'll say there's been a horrible situation in Donbass for the last eight years.
00:28:19.000And this crisis has not been resolved, and we don't feel like the key of government in Washington is acting in good faith, and we reserve the right to settle this on our own terms.
00:28:42.000I mean, what if we had a similar situation, you know, on the border with Mexico?
00:28:46.000You know, if there was a Basically a simmering conflict going on for eight years, a hostile military alliance moving up on our borders.
00:28:54.000You know, it's not a matter of condemning or not, but I think there needs to be understanding.
00:28:59.000And this idea that, you know, Russia is this crazy wild bear that's out of control, I think this is not a responsible or intelligent way of looking at this conflict.
00:29:07.000And there needs to be some sort of understanding before we can hopefully Find peace because we desperately need it.