A British government minister has refused to confirm whether Russian spies stole the British-made COVID-19 vaccine to create its own jab.
Home Office minister, Damian Hinds would not be drawn on allegations that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine’s design was used to create Russia’s Sputnik V jab, instead said more generally that “state activity’’ was involved in industrial espionage.
His comments come after a report by Britain’s Sun newspaper which suggests “security services’’ sources have evidence that Russian intelligence agents had stolen the Oxford vaccine design.
On Monday, Hinds told LBC talk radio: “We live in a world, I am afraid, where there is state activity seeking to engage in industrial espionage and economic espionage, there are cyber attacks that happen and so on.’’
“I won’t comment on the specific case that you mention because that wouldn’t be right to do in detail, but it would be fair to say, correct to say, that we face threats of this type that are different, they are more sophisticated, they are more extensive than they ever have been before.
Conservative MP Bob Seely, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Sun that Britain needs to “get serious about Russian and Chinese espionage.’’
The Isle of Wight MP said: “whether it is stealing the design for AstraZeneca or blackmailing us over energy by these authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, we need to get wise to them.’’
Last year, British security services had accused Russian spies of trying to steal details of Coronavirus vaccine research being carried out by Britain, the U.S., and Canada.
In 2020, then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab condemned a “shabby’’ disinformation campaign by Russia, which sought to discredit theO xford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
The campaign suggested the vaccine could turn people into monkeys because it uses a chimpanzee virus as a vector even though that is a common practice in vaccine development.
The campaign was allegedly targeted at countries where Russia wanted to sell its own Sputnik V vaccine, as well as at Western nations.
