Reports that Russia’s new COVID vaccination kills more than half of those who receive it have been dismissed by the Kremlin as hyperbolic.

Vaccinations began in Moscow yesterday evening and early dispatches suggest the vaccine has nasty side effects like shutting down nervous systems and rupturing spleens, with most recipients dying within hours of injection.

“You’ve got to look at the full context,” president Vladimir Putin said in a statement released earlier today. “Yes, there has been some collateral damage, but see also that COVID deaths have plummeted.”

Speaking of plummeting, several clumsy Russian scientists who criticised the speed with which the vaccine was being moved into production have died after falling out of various thirtieth storey windows.

The Russian government has confirmed it intends to continue rolling out the vaccine to the surviving population, thus getting one up on the rest of the world.