Russian allegations of secret American bioweapons labs in Ukraine are taking root in the United States as well, uniting COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, QAnon supporters, and some ex-President Donald Trump supporters.
Despite denials from independent academics, Ukrainian leaders, and White House and Pentagon officials, the online popularity of these claims suggests that some Americans are willing to trust Kremlin propaganda over US media and government.
Like any effective conspiracy theory, the Russian claim is based on some facts: Ukraine does maintain a network of biological laboratories dedicated to pathogen research, and these laboratories receive US funding and research support.
But the labs are owned and operated by Ukraine, and the work is not classified. It’s part of an initiative called the Biothreat Reduction Program, which aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or man-made.
US efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction program.
“The labs are not secret,” said Philippa Lenzos, senior lecturer in science and international security at King’s College London. “They are not used against biological weapons. It’s all disinformation.”
US biolabs
But that hasn’t stopped some of the far-right, Fox News anchors, and groups that are pushing debunked claims that COVID-19 is a US-made bioweapon from backing the claim.
On the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an early version appeared on Twitter – in a thread supporting the idea that the Russian offensive was targeting “U.S. biolabs in Ukraine” – and was soon expanded by the Infowars conspiracy theory website.
It has spread to mainstream and low-profile social platforms, including Telegram and Gab, which are popular among the American far right, COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, and supporters of QAnon, an unsubstantiated hoax according to which Satan-worshipping pedophiles are secretly shaping world events.
Many of the accounts releasing the statement cite Russian propaganda media as sources. When Kremlin officials repeated the accusation on Thursday, saying the US was developing bioweapons targeted at specific ethnic groups, it took minutes for their quotes to appear on US social media.
Several Telegram users who cited the comments said they trusted Russian propaganda more than independent American journalists or their own democratically elected officials.
“I can’t believe anything our government says!” wrote one poster. Others have referred to this assertion, repeating, as a similitude, Russia’s theses about the invasion. “This is not a ‘war’, this is a much needed purge,” wrote a member of the Patriot Voices Telegram group, popular among Trump supporters.
“There are a ton of U.S. government-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine that have created deadly pathogens and viruses.”
Television pundits and high-profile political figures have furthered this assertion. Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted Wednesday and Thursday segments of his shows to promoting the conspiracy theory.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr said the lab conspiracy theories were “fact” in a tweet to his 7.3 million followers.
Both Carlson and Trump distorted congressional testimony from a State Department official that the US was working with Ukraine to secure materials in biological labs, suggesting that the labs were being used for illegal purposes.
However, it is not surprising that a biological research center may contain potentially hazardous materials.
The World Health Organization said on Thursday it had asked Ukraine to destroy any samples that could pose a threat if released intentionally or accidentally.
While disinformation is a threat in itself, the White House warned this week that the latest Kremlin conspiracy theory could be a prelude to a chemical or biological attack that Russia would blame on the US or Ukraine.
“Frankly, this influence campaign is entirely consistent with Russia’s long-standing attempts to accuse the United States of sponsoring biological weapons work in the former Soviet Union,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes said during her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“So it’s a classic Russian move.”
“Nothing they claim is true”
The conspiracy theory has also been picked up by Chinese state media, and this week China’s foreign ministry further amplified it by echoing Russia’s claim and calling for an investigation.
Milton Leitenberg, an arms control expert and senior fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, noted that Russia has a long history of spreading such disinformation.
In the 1980s, Russian intelligence spread the conspiracy theory that the US had created HIV in a lab. Leitenberg said that many Russian scientists visited a similar public health laboratory in the Republic of Georgia, but Russia continued to spread false claims about the institution.
“They don’t know anything about what’s going on there, and they know that nothing they claim is true,” Leitenberg said. “The important thing is that they know it, no doubt.”
According to Andy Carwin, senior fellow and managing editor at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which is gaining momentum in the US, the bioweapon claims are likely intended for domestic Russian audiences as a way to bolster support for the invasion. monitors Russian disinformation.
He noted that the Kremlin also spread false information about Ukraine’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
“It’s a cycle of rinsing and repeating to bring these narratives to consciousness, especially to an internal audience,” Carwin said.