President’s Office: Zeman’s letter to Putin confidential

The Office of the President has refused to make public the letter that President Miloš Zeman sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin, requesting Sputnik vaccines for the Czech Republic, Czech Radio reported on Tuesday, saying that its request to see the letter had been rejected on the grounds that it contained personal information. Czech Radio’s flagship news channel Radiožurnál moreover reported that Russia’s head of state had not even bothered to respond to the request, despite the fact that the Czech president claimed he had written to Russia, China and Israel asking for vaccines and had received a positive response from all. The Office of the President said the response from Moscow had not come in writing. In mid-April Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said the Czech Republic could get 300,000 vaccines from Russia immediately, but was waiting for the vaccine to get approval by the European Medicines Agency.