Egypt, Russia Ink Two Historic Accords to Produce Sputnik Vaccine, Resume Flights

Egypt and Russia's relations witness surprising and unprecedented developments within the two last days that prove significantly the strength of those relations.

The first accord, which is considered unique in its kind, related to Moscow's announcement of signing a big contraction to produce tens of millions of doses of Sputnik V, the anti-Corona vaccine, in Egypt.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund assured in a statement issued yesterday, Thursday, that it has signed an agreement with Minapharm, an Egyptian pharmaceutical company and its subsidiary BroBioGen based in Germany to produce 40 million doses of the Russian vaccine annually over the first stage.

The statement indicated that the two parties of the agreement intend to launch an operation to transfer technology in the near future to start producing the Russian vaccine in factories of Minapharm in Cairo as of the third quarter of the current year.

On the other hand, the second agreement which some people did not expect,   related to the agreement of the    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on resuming flights between Egypt and Russia in full swing after a hiatus of 6 years.

The Egyptian presidency mentioned today, Friday, that the two presidents agreed on resuming flights between airports of the two countries including Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh in full swing.

It added that the two presidents talked on the phone and discussed all issues of bilateral relations between the two countries, especially those related to cooperation in the tourism sector, as it was agreed to resume full air traffic between the two countries' airports, including Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh, after the successful joint cooperation between the two sides in this context.

Resuming Russian flights to Egypt also bases on what the Egyptian airports provide at tourist destinations as they have criteria for security and comfort for inbound tourists.

Moscow had suspended flights to and from Egypt, after an "Airbus-321" passenger plane belonging to a Russian airline crashed over the Sinai Peninsula at the end of October 2015.