Putin's action came hours after Britain became the first country in the West to authorize the use of a vaccine against the coronavirus developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech.

Russia touted its domestically developed vaccine, Sputnik V, as the world's "first registered COVID-19 vaccine" after the government gave it regulatory approval in early August. However, giving the shots the go-ahead drew considerable criticism from experts, because at the time the Sputnik V only had been tested on several dozen people.

The Russian leader said at the time that the early vaccine recipients included one of his daughters.

Putin said Wednesday that more than 2 million doses of the Sputnik V jab "has been produced or will have been produced in the next few days."