Zakharova called the lack of measures against the head of the European Commission after the EU vaccine court reprehensible.

The lack of a definition of responsibility towards the head of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen in the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) on the concealment of data on contracts for the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19 in 2020-2021 is reprehensible. This statement was made on May 14 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.

Earlier that day, the EU court found von der Leyen responsible for concealing information about contracts for the purchase of vaccines against coronavirus. According to the newspaper Politcio, the decision could deal a devastating blow to her reputation.

"This is, of course, a new page in the EU-NATO dispute," Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

According to her, the relevant court decision may serve as the basis for new lawsuits against von der Leyen with more serious charges.

She compared the case of the head of the European Commission with the case of former American actor and athlete, the first player of the National Football League O. J. Simpson, who was accused of the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her lover, waiter Ronald Goldman, and was acquitted, thereby avoiding the death penalty.

"Instead of the next illegal sanctions against Russia, it would be better to apply the law against their own, now, as proven by the court, a criminal," the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.

On April 1, 2024, it became known that Belgian investigators had opened a criminal case against von der Leyen. The investigation began a year earlier after a representative of a local consulting firm, Frederic Baldan, filed an application accusing the head of the EC of corruption after her correspondence with the head of Pfizer about the purchase of vaccines for the entire EU.

In early December last year, it was reported that more than a thousand citizens of the European Union supported the lawsuit against von der Leyen due to possible violations with vaccines.