The head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund has predicted the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be cleared for use soon.
Kirill Dmitriev also predicted the vaccines would be mixed with others in a 'cocktail' to tackle future mutations and strains.
Speaking at a World Economic Forum webinar for the International Media Council, he singled out the AstraZeneca vaccine as a potential pairing, saying he believes it is highly effective.
That was despite European countries halting the vaccine's use this week due to, as of yet, unproven claims about a link to blood clots.
"We believe that Sputnik can be paired with other vaccines. And we have an agreement like this with AstraZeneca, which by the way I believe is a good vaccine and i think it will be vindicated this week," he said.
It is these collaborations that will be important in fighting against mutations in the future, he said.
On the subject of bad press, he claimed that the Sputnik vaccine has become both a media and political phenomenon, gaining ample coverage in Europe.
"We already have 51 countries that have approved Sputnik. Our priority is the vaccination of people in Russia," he said.
"1.3 billion people live countries that have approved Sputnik so far. As of the end of this month we'll have 2.5 billion people living in countries where Sputnik is approved because we'll get it approved in India."
Russia has had success so far in getting up to 50 other countries to approve the vaccination. Millions of doses have already been sent to Latin America.
Many of these countries have no home-grown vaccine, but could produce Sputnik V if given the formula.
"We have five producers inside of Russia, we have made agreements with more than 10 countries and 20 companies to produce Sputnik," he said.
"From day one we focused on fighting Covid-19.
"We invested in a successful test. We invested in a successful drug. We will continue to be successful with it."
