KYIV, Jan 31 - Russia has begun supplying its Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to the rebel-controlled region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine despite a ban by Kyiv, Reuters reported Sunday citing a local news outlet.

The move comes despite the Ukrainian government’s refusal to allow the use of the Russian vaccine on its territory and instead planning to secure shipments of Western-made vaccines in February.

But the government has little control over Donetsk on its border with Russia, where conflict between Ukrainian troops and Moscow-backed separatist rebels has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014.

Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic, was quoted by the region’s news agency DAN as saying vaccinations would soon begin thanks to Russian supplies.

“A couple of thousand doses were supplied. Such deliveries will come on a regular basis,” he said. “We are grateful to Russia that it supports us in every field.”

It was not clear which institution supplied the doses.

On Saturday, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which markets the Sputnik vaccine abroad, said it did not supply the Donetsk or Luhansk breakaway regions.

Pushilin said health workers and teachers were among those being vaccinated first and free of charge.

There was no immediate reaction from the governments in Kyiv or Moscow on the DAN report.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccination programs in Ukraine was given a boost over the weekend as health officials announced progress in getting their populations inoculated, RFE/RL reported.

Ukraine's deputy health minister, Viktor Lyashko, said on Saturday that his country will receive 117,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot in February via COVAX, a facility coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to support lower-income countries in accessing vaccines.

The vaccine will be immediately distributed to inoculate employees of hospitals who provide care to patients with COVID-19, Lyashko said.

No vaccine has yet been approved in Ukraine, but authorities have repeatedly said Kyiv will not approve or use vaccines from Russia, with which Ukraine's ties are strained.

"One political force just created some hysteria over the registration of the Russian vaccine," Ukraine's Health Minister Maksym Stepanov told a televised briefing.

"I can say at once: You can be hysterical for a very long time, no one will register the Russian vaccine in the country."

Biolik, a Ukrainian pharmaceutical company backed by Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent Russia-leaning opposition figure, said earlier this month it had applied for state approval to make Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, a sensitive move given the poor relations between Kyiv and Moscow.

Despite criticism of the way trials of the vaccine were conducted, Russia’s Sputnik-V has also been registered in Russia, Belarus, Argentina, Bolivia, Serbia, Palestine, Venezuela, Paraguay, Turkmenistan, the U.A.E., and the Republic of Guinea.

Ukraine plans to receive between 2.2 and 3.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first half of 2021. (tl/rt/rfe/ez)