Biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine: Disinformation – NZZ Akzent

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Abstruse theories about secret bioweapons laboratories in the United States have been circulating for a long time. You could find them on social networks even before the corona pandemic. At that time, however, little attention, somewhere in the niches of conspiracy theorists. But that changed with the outbreak of the Ukraine war: The conspiracy theory about secret US laboratories in Ukraine is experiencing a real revival, says Katrin Büchenbacher in the latest episode of “NZZ Akzent”.

In less than two weeks, this conspiracy theory made it from a dark niche on the web into the mainstream. Büchenbacher explains that it was initially distributed in a targeted manner via Russian trolls, who spread disinformation on all channels, including official statements by the Kremlin. And that’s not all: At the request of Russia, even the UN Security Council, one of the most powerful bodies in the world, had to address the issue in an emergency meeting in mid-March.

The conspiracy theory hit the headlines around the world. Mainstream media also felt obliged to respond. And although the misinformation has been refuted several times, it has reached an ever-increasing reach. This is a common problem: conspiracy theories benefit from being on everyone’s lips, sowing doubts about proven facts and offering alternative readings. This helps the false information to gain further acceptance and legitimacy, says Büchenbacher. And unfortunately it doesn’t help much that fact-checkers like this one have repeatedly refuted the theory of the secret US biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.

All episodes of “NZZ Akzent” can be found in this overview.