Russia Continues to Spread US Bioweapons Conspiracy Theory

US media is report­ing that Rus­sia con­tin­ues to spread the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that the Unit­ed States secret­ly man­u­fac­tured bio­log­i­cal weapons in Ukraine. The report says the Krem­lin recent­ly com­mand­ed the Bio­log­i­cal and Tox­in Weapons Con­ven­tion (BTWC), an inter­na­tion­al forum in Gene­va, to air its unsup­port­ed asser­tions again. Accord­ing to a New York Times report:

Sep­tem­ber 4, 2022 The Unit­ed States secret­ly man­u­fac­tured bio­log­i­cal weapons in Ukraine. It trained birds to car­ry pathogens into Rus­sia. It cre­at­ed Covid-19. It oper­at­ed lab­o­ra­to­ries in Nige­ria that engi­neered this year’s out­break of mon­key­pox.  Of the many false­hoods that the Krem­lin has spread since the war in Ukraine began more than six months ago, some of the most out­landish and yet endur­ing have been those accus­ing the Unit­ed States of oper­at­ing clan­des­tine bio­log­i­cal research pro­grams to wreak hav­oc around the globe.  The Unit­ed States and oth­ers have dis­missed the accu­sa­tions as pre­pos­ter­ous, and Rus­sia has offered no proof. Yet the claims con­tin­ue to cir­cu­late. Backed at times by China’s diplo­mats and state media, they have ebbed and flowed in inter­na­tion­al news reports, fuel­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that linger online.  In Gene­va this week, Rus­sia has com­mand­ed an inter­na­tion­al forum to air its unsup­port­ed asser­tions again. The Bio­log­i­cal Weapons Con­ven­tion, the inter­na­tion­al treaty that since 1975 has barred the devel­op­ment and use of weapons made of bio­log­i­cal tox­ins or pathogens, gives mem­ber nations the author­i­ty to request a for­mal hear­ing of vio­la­tions, and Rus­sia has invoked the first one in a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry.  “This is the mil­i­tary bio­log­i­cal Pandora’s box, which the Unit­ed States has opened and filled more than once,” Iri­na A. Yarovaya, the deputy chair of Russia’s low­er house of Par­lia­ment, the State Duma, said last month. She is lead­ing a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee that was formed to “inves­ti­gate” Amer­i­can sup­port for bio­log­i­cal research lab­o­ra­to­ries in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Read the rest here.

The report notes that Russia’s accu­sa­tions have appeared in news reports in many coun­tries, espe­cial­ly in Africa and the Mid­dle East, which have become diplo­mat­ic bat­tle­grounds between the Unit­ed States, Rus­sia, and Chi­na.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report has exten­sive­ly report­ed on Russ­ian claims that the Unit­ed States was devel­op­ing bio­log­i­cal weapons in a net­work of labs in Ukraine. These claims were copy-past­ed almost ver­ba­tim from years of sim­i­lar fake sto­ries that Krem­lin trolls have used to try and dis­cred­it legit­i­mate bio­log­i­cal research in Geor­gia and Kaza­khstan. This con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry has been echoed by Chi­nese offi­cials and ampli­fied by QAnon con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists and con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­can polit­i­cal fig­ures, includ­ing Fox News host Tuck­er Carl­son and Don­ald Trump Jr.