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Watching as Russia's drive to vaccinate its citizens against coronavirus stumbled earlier this year, Sergei had a hunch that authorities would eventually make inoculations mandatory.
But the 30-something in the southern Krasnodar region had no plans of getting a jab.
So he found a dealer online hawking fake vaccine certificates, sent his personal details over encrypted messenger Telegram and transferred 15,000 rubles ($200, 175 euros).
Three weeks later, Sergei logged onto Russia's government services portal to find a certificate showing he had received both doses of the country's homegrown Sputnik V vaccine — without ever having been jabbed.
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The black market is only one way to get around vaccinating, and there are other "much simpler" methods, said Brand.
"People just go to the clinic and give a certain nurse money" to dispose of vaccine doses and make a false registration, he said.
The method — so widespread in Russia that it is known as "jab down the drain" — has been used for years by nurses with mothers hesitant to vaccinate their children, Brand said.
"With Covid, I think it's happening en masse," he said.