As your article notes, Russia was similar to allowing people to join the phase 3 trial. It was not a widespread deployment of vaccines and was not analogous to the EUA for Pfizer and moderna. “In effect, Russia will be conducting its Phase 3 trials live, treating it more as a demonstrator group than a control group meant to ensure there is nothing dangerous awaiting the larger population.

The first two phases involved just a few dozen volunteers.

Phase 3 trials will be conducted not only in Russia but in partner countries including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Dmitriev said in Tuesday's statement.”

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_V_COVID-19_vaccine#Aut... the first authorizations outside Russia occurred in December 2020.

Similarly for the Chinese vaccine it took time for the trial results to arrive. Sinovac was approved for general use in February 2021, months after the FDA had authorized Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3120855/covi...

Aren't their vaccines significantly less effective than Moderna, Pfizer, etc.? In that case, I'm not sure we should let their earlier release reflect negatively on those that took longer to be ready. On the contrary, maybe we should instead consider the possibility that the Russian and Chinese vaccines were rushed.