![]() ![]() In a 2021 report, the US state department took the extraordinary step of accusing Moscow of continuing its Soviet-era bioweapons programme. ![]() Specifically, the department called on its mouthpieces in Russian media to highlight that “activities of military biological laboratories with American participation on the territory of Ukraine carried global threats to Russia and Europe”.Īll told, the propaganda effort might be an effort to cover up something much more sinister in its own back yard. Mother Jones obtained a missive from the department of information and telecommunications support, instructing Russian media to, per a translation, “use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson”. The interplay between American reporting on these biolabs and the Russian response is no accident. These claims have been promoted widely by an array of Russian social media channels, television stations and commentators. ![]() The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said publicly that these labs are “deadly threats” to the Russian state. Tass, the Russian news agency seen as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin, has recently accused “Ukrainian radicals” of planning to use “toxic chemicals” against Russian forces or even Ukrainian civilians. These claims have led to an active feedback loop with Russian state propaganda. “When the government comes out and emphatically denies that they have biological weapons,” Greenwald said. On 10 March he brought on writer Glenn Greenwald. On his show, Carlson insisted that the United States was “funding the creation of deadly pathogens” and played clips of spokespeople for the Russian and Chinese regimes, accusing Washington of operating a bioweapons programme in Europe.Ĭarlson pursued the story on three different episodes of his show over the past week. But Washington insists that it does not fund biological weapons research anywhere, much less in Ukraine – a claim backed up by a bevy of international organisations and non-proliferation advocates.ĭespite that, the claim made its way to Tucker Carlson Tonight, which boasts more than 3 million viewers a night on Fox News. The very core of the story is true: the Department of Defense funds biological research and laboratories in Ukraine, and elsewhere in Europe and the Caucasus, in order to surveil emerging infectious diseases and to keep secure facilities that housed a Soviet bioweapons program. The headline read: Russian Strikes Targeting US-Run Bio-Labs in Ukraine?įrom there, the theory percolated through an array of QAnon and conspiracy theory websites, podcasts and video channels. In less than 24 hours, the far-right US conspiracy site Infowars, which played a particularly acute role in promoting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, ran a story based on the allegation. This disinformation laid the groundwork for the QAnon-linked conspiracy theory about Ukrainian biolabs in late February. “Washington and its funded laboratories are playing a very dangerous game with these viruses,” he warned in a December 2021 video. Gaytandzhieva was even awarded a journalism prize last month by a pro-Russian Latvian politician to “encourage her for new research”, according to a press release.Īround the same time, John Mark Dougan – an American in Moscow, on the lam from wiretapping and extortion charges in Florida – began posting a similar theory, citing a Ukrainian whistleblower. Gaytandzhieva has previously published overt Russian disinformation, and her reporting was picked up by pro-Russian channels. In January, the Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva wrote a sensationalist piece accusing the US of conducting biological experiments on Ukrainian and Georgian soldiers. A close adviser to President Vladimir Putin alleged last year that Washington “ deliberately caused” the coronavirus pandemic and pointed his finger at US-funded laboratories near Russian and Chinese borders. In effect, this theory was just a remix of an allegation that Moscow has made for years: accusing the United States of running a secret bioweapons program, often in eastern Europe. “And are fearful that the US/allies have more viruses (bioweapons) to let out.” The invasion, he posited, was truly about destroying those facilities and the viruses they contained. “China and Russia indirectly (and correctly) blamed the US for the outbreak,” the user, who goes by the username tweeted. In the hours after Russia launched its aerial bombardment of Ukraine, the Twitter account of a longtime follower of the QAnon conspiracy movement remarked that approximately 30 biolabs were dotted across Ukraine. The conspiracy theory began in seeming obscurity.
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