Since you mentioned it, how is/was the mandate to get the Sputnik jab? I read there was compulsory vaccination in places like Moscow.

There was no mandates. They tried to push that through employers, in some regions they tried to use QR codes for access to public places, and so on. That in no way affected those who didn't want to take a jab and obviously not affected those who took the jab. Than all that shit just silently disappear.

Most severe case was in Kazan, IIRC where town authorities tried to limit access to shops and supermarkets with QR codes, but that hold only for few days, because people just go to small groceries who care about profit much more than about potential punishment.

QR codes system was quickly reverse engineered and there even was a sites where you could obtain absolutely valid QR codes for free. The trick was that according to the law, those who supposed to check QR codes (shop security or whatever personnel) can't have access to personal data. So, after scanning QR code system show only initials, birth year and vaccination status. To check QR code application that do the job do a request to a server with ID that was encoded in QR code, and database replied with this data. IDs was sequential, so all you had to do is just do queries incrementing ID until you get reply with your initials and birth year. Later they added few digits of passport number to reply, but that does not changed anything, because nobody obliged to carry passport to shop or cafe and in addition staff can't ask for it. Also staff in most cases made a show of checking QR codes than actually checked them. And it was not hard to find a record with same digits. So, any QR code that will give positive vaccination status was enough in most cases. Many just stole valid QR codes from the Instagram whores photos with "I got a QR code!" virtue signalling. Funny, that reply from server also had a type of vaccine and batch number, but they was not shown in app for checking.

Employer pressure was harder to mitigate, so here comes corruption. Initially doctors/nurses demanded around $100 for official paper confirmation of vaccination with all stamps and signatures, but the price quickly drop to the $10 or even less. Some nurses even do that for free, like "do you really want to be jabbed, or you just need a paper?".

In some regions there was no any attempts to force any QR codes or push through employers, in others they tried hard.

But overall, even in the worst case all you could lose for being pureblood is $10, miss a movie in cinema or skipped dinner in restaraunt. In some places, like Saint Petersburg, some cafes and restaraunts openly ignored QR code mandate as a kind of protest.

There was many vaccination points organized in different public places, but I rarely saw anybody in them.

In Moscow there was no any significant QR code madness, may be some enterprises was forced to jab their staff, but I didn't met any of that.

Really, only those who travellled abroad to the countries where was vaccine mandates was seriously forced to take a jab, and it was not Sputnik, but some vaccine that was authorized in that country. Not all countries demanded vaccinations, many friends of mine took a vacations in Egypt or Turkey without any vaccination.

As far as I understand now, there was no really hard push specifically to jab all of us, the main goal was to report about significant number of jabbed to the top and launder a lot of tax money through vaccines. Honestly, I thought things would be much more oppressive.

Side effects in poor jabbed idiots was not like on the West. Mostly kind of painful arthritis in joints. I didn't heard about heart problems or "died suddenly". Also jabbed seemed to get cold/flu/etc more often than normal people, but now that trend is lowering. Funny, that in the beginning of 2023 the head of similar to FDA organization issued a statement that it is already late to do flu jabs in that year, so it is not recommended.

Shortly, no, there was no compulsory vaccinations in Russia, and all attempts to somehow force vaccines was relatively mild and easily mitigated either by cheating with QR codes, either by bribing nurses. Most people who was jabbed fall to propaganda and fearmongering. Those who didn't want to be jabbed could easily evade it.