MOSCOW — Russia’s daily coronavirus infections and deaths hovered near all-time highs Monday amid sluggish vaccination rates and the Kremlin’s reluctance to toughen restrictions.

Russia’s state coronavirus task force reported 29,409 new confirmed cases — the highest number this year and just slightly lower than the pandemic record reached in December.

After registering the highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic at 968 over the weekend, Russia reported 957 new deaths on Monday.

Russia already has Europe’s highest death toll in the pandemic — more than 217,000, according to a government task force. The state statistics agency, which uses a different way of counting including when the virus wasn’t considered the main cause of death, has reported about 418,000 deaths of people with COVID-19.

A sharp rise in infections and deaths began last month with the government attributing it to a slow vaccination rate. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said Friday that 47.8 million Russians, or almost 33% of its nearly 146 million people, had received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 42.4 million, or about 29%, were fully vaccinated.

Russia’s coronavirus task force has registered over 7.8 million confirmed cases and 217,372 deaths.