The dominant coronavirus strain in Russia received the official designation AY.122 
The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus strain, dominant in Russia and called “Russian”, received the official designation AY.122 and was entered in the Pangolin virus nomenclature register. This is reported by RIA Novosti.
The new strain was first identified in Slovakia in January 2021, and in May-June it appeared in the Russian Federation. By the end of the summer, AY.122 already accounted for more than 80 percent of Russian coronavirus genome samples uploaded to the GISAID public database. At the same time, it spread to Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland and Israel, where an independent identity of the strain arose, designated AY.122.1.
According to geneticist Dmitry Pruss from Salt Lake City, The main difficulty in isolating the coronavirus into a separate strain was the unreliable behavior of one of its two characteristic mutations – Orf7a: P45L. Therefore, the basis for the recognition of the new strain was another mutation – Orf1a: K261N.
This key change affects genes that do not encode the S-protein of the coronavirus, which is involved in the penetration of the virus into the cell, and which is targeted by most vaccines. Therefore, AY.122 is not expected to have increased resistance to antibodies that are produced in vaccinated individuals.