QAnon Pushes Conspiracy Theory About U.S. Biowarfare Labs In Ukraine

Pro-Russian channels and QAnon conspiracy theorists think Moscow is launching airstrikes on Ukraine to destroy bioweapon-manufacturing labs in order to prevent the US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci from creating a sequel to the COVID-19 virus, Justin Ling reported for Foreign Policy (FP) recently.

Photo Insert: A QAnon demonstration

This theory hangs on the entirely discredited idea that the coronavirus was designed as a bioweapon, perhaps by the US government itself. And yet, the theory is being shared thousands of times, faster than regulated social media networks can yank the conspiracy theory down.

On unregulated platforms like Telegram and 8chan, the conspiracy theory has become incredibly popular, racking up hundreds of thousands of hits each day. The theory is now being actively contributed to and promoted, by one Russian embassy, an official Russian state propaganda outlet, and media channels in Serbia and China.

The Russian government has laid the groundwork for this conspiracy for some time.

In January, a Russian-language Telegram account warned that a “full-fledged network of biological laboratories has been deployed,” studying deadly viruses that are already making people sick in Kazakhstan with “American grants.”

The Russian newspaper Izvestia ran a story in May 2020 making similar claims, and they have been repeated in pro-Russian Ukrainian news sites. A close advisor of Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has accused the US of developing “more and more biological laboratories … mainly by the Russian and Chinese borders.”

The conspiracy has received support in Chinese propaganda, after Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying said last May, in response to claims in Australian media about China’s own supposed biowarfare programs, that the US had been secretly working on biolabs and had 16 in Ukraine alone.

Chinese state media has spread the false claim that the coronavirus originated from the US Army base at Fort Detrick. The conspiracy theory even pushed the Security Service of Ukraine to debunk the allegation of US-run bioweapons facilities in 2020.

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