PARIS – A row over Covid-19 vaccine access escalated Friday, with France accusing Britain of “blackmail” in its dealings with the EU, and Russia and China of misusing vaccines to boost their foreign policy clout.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s salvo came a day after the European Union threatened to ban pharma firms from exporting coronavirus vaccines to the UK and other well-supplied countries until they make good on their promised deliveries to the bloc.
British-based AstraZeneca would likely be the first target of any such restrictions.
The UK was under pressure because it lacked doses for second vaccine shots, said Le Drian.
“The United Kingdom has taken great pride in vaccinating well with the first dose except they have a problem with the second dose,” he told France Info radio.
“You are vaccinated when you have had both doses. Today there are as many people vaccinated with both in France as the United Kingdom,” he added.
According to data compiled by AFP, Britain has administered two vaccine doses to 4.1 percent of its population, against 3.9 percent overall in France.
“You can’t be playing like this, a bit of blackmail, just because you hurried to get people vaccinated with a first shot, and now you’re a bit handicapped because you don’t have the second one,” Le Drian added.
Le Drian did not say what precisely constituted the alleged British blackmail, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson had warned earlier in the week that trade “blockades” would chill investment.
“I would just gently point out to anybody considering a blockade, or interruption of supply chains, that companies may look at such actions and draw conclusions about whether or not it is sensible to make future investments in countries where arbitrary blockades are imposed,” he told lawmakers.
The latest EU-UK row centers on an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands, which Johnson’s government claims as part of the British vaccine supply chain.
Any suggestions of British vaccine selfishness have found robust responses in British media, with The Times accusing President Emmanuel Macron of “evident anglophobia” and “petty jingoism,” and The Sun calling him “arrogant.”
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen’s stark warning of a vaccine export stop came after a video summit of all 27 EU leaders and stoked fears that cross-Channel rivalry could damage global efforts to combat the pandemic.
France has made clear it sees vaccine policies feeding not just European, but global competition for influence.
“We are looking at a new type of world war,” Macron said after the EU summit. “We are looking in particular at Russian and Chinese attacks and attempts to gain influence through the vaccine.”
This situation, he said, meant the EU had to strengthen its own vaccine capabilities.
His foreign minister on Friday also accused Russia and China of using their vaccines to gain influence abroad even before they had finished inoculating their own populations, a claim rejected by Moscow.
“We absolutely disagree with the fact that both Russia and China are waging some kind of war,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
“And we absolutely disagree with the fact that Russia and China are using the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines as tools of influence.”
Russia and China have, for their part, accused Western countries of hoarding vaccines to the detriment of poor nations.
Russia has applied to Europe’s medicines regulator EMA to gain approval for the use of its Sputnik V vaccine in the 27-nation bloc, but is still waiting for an answer.
The German government said Friday that it would be open to using Sputnik V once it had EMA approval.
In the meantime the developers are pushing Sputnik V — named after the Soviet-era satellite — in other regions and say the jab has been registered in 55 countries around the world.
Vaccine row escalates as France accuses UK of ‘blackmail’
https://arab.news/gnknu
Vaccine row escalates as France accuses UK of ‘blackmail’
- Latest EU-UK row centres on an AstraZeneca plant in the Netherlands, which Boris Johnson's government claims as part of the British vaccine supply chain
- Macron said after the EU summit “We are looking in particular at Russian and Chinese attacks and attempts to gain influence through the vaccine”
‘Look ahead or look up?’: Pakistan’s police face new challenge as militants take to drone warfare
- Officials say militants are using weapons and equipment left behind after allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan
- Police in northwest Pakistan say electronic jammers have helped repel more than 300 drone attacks since mid-2025
BANNU, Pakistan: On a quiet morning last July, Constable Hazrat Ali had just finished his prayers at the Miryan police station in Pakistan’s volatile northwest when the shouting began.
His colleagues in Bannu district spotted a small speck in the sky. Before Ali could take cover, an explosion tore through the compound behind him. It was not a mortar or a suicide vest, but an improvised explosive dropped from a drone.
“Now should we look ahead or look up [to sky]?” said Ali, who was wounded again in a second drone strike during an operation against militants last month. He still carries shrapnel scars on his back, hand and foot, physical reminders of how the battlefield has shifted upward.
For police in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the fight against militancy has become a three-dimensional conflict. Pakistani officials say armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are increasingly deploying commercial drones modified to drop explosives, alongside other weapons they say were acquired after the US military withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.
Security analysts say the trend mirrors a wider global pattern, where low-cost, commercially available drones are being repurposed by non-state actors from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, challenging traditional policing and counterinsurgency tactics.
The escalation comes as militant violence has surged across Pakistan. Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reported a 73 percent rise in combat-related deaths in 2025, with fatalities climbing to 3,387 from 1,950 a year earlier. Militants have increasingly shifted operations from northern tribal belts to southern KP districts such as Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan.
“Bannu is an important town of southern KP, and we are feeling the heat,” said Sajjad Khan, the region’s police chief. “There has been an enormous increase in the number of incidents of terrorism… It is a mix of local militants and Afghan militants.”
In 2025 alone, Bannu police recorded 134 attacks on stations, checkpoints and personnel. At least 27 police officers were killed, while authorities say 53 militants died in the clashes. Many assaults involved coordinated, multi-pronged attacks using heavy weapons.
Drones have also added a new layer of danger. What began as reconnaissance tools have been weaponized with improvised devices that rely on gravity rather than guidance systems.
“Earlier, they used to drop [explosives] in bottles. After that, they started cutting pipes for this purpose,” said Jamshed Khan, head of the regional bomb disposal unit. “Now we have encountered a new type: a pistol hand grenade.”
When dropped from above, he explained, a metal pin ignites the charge on impact.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Raza Khan, who narrowly survived a drone strike during construction at a checkpoint, described devices packed with nails, bullets and metal fragments.
“They attach a shuttlecock-like piece on top. When they drop it from a height, its direction remains straight toward the ground,” he said.
TARGETING CIVILIANS
Officials say militants’ rapid adoption of drone technology has been fueled by access to equipment on informal markets, while police procurement remains slower.
“It is easy for militants to get such things,” Sajjad Khan said. “And for us, I mean, we have to go through certain process and procedures as per rules.”
That imbalance began to shift in mid-2025, when authorities deployed electronic anti-drone systems in the region. Before that, officers relied on snipers or improvised nets strung over police compounds.
“Initially, when we did not have that anti-drone system, their strikes were effective,” the police chief said, adding that more than 300 attempted drone attacks have since been repelled or electronically disrupted. “That was a decisive moment.”
Police say militants have also targeted civilians, killing nine people in drone attacks this year, often in communities accused of cooperating with authorities. Several police stations suffered structural damage.
Bannu’s location as a gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan has made it a security flashpoint since colonial times. But officials say the aerial dimension of the conflict has placed unprecedented strain on local forces.
For constables like Hazrat Ali, new technology offers some protection, but resolve remains central.
“Nowadays, they have ammunition and all kinds of the most modern weapons. They also have large drones,” he said. “When we fight them, we fight with our courage and determination.”
