Russia Doesn't Need Trolls This Time

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:
Will Saletan
@saletan
.@amandacarpenter exposes the MAGA propagandists who "claim to be free-thinking contrarians. But their accusations, questions, and conclusions" always "go one way: The [US] and Ukraine are somehow wrong, and the Russians have their reasons for waging war."

thebulwark.com
Russia Doesn’t Need Trolls This Time
Bioweapons conspiracy promoted by likely suspects.
9:02 AM · Mar 14, 2022

https://www.thebulwark.com/russia-doesnt-need-trolls-this-time/

*snip*

Before we dig into the Russian disinformation about supposed U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine, let’s put some facts on the record: Both the United States and the Soviet Union had biological weapons programs. The American program lasted for about a quarter-century and was shut down by President Nixon before the United States signed on to the Biological Weapons Convention. The Soviet bioweapons program dwarfed the U.S. program—and long after the USSR signed on to the Bioweapons Convention, the Soviet program continued its work in secret. The Americans did not operate bioweapons labs in Ukraine, but the Soviets did—although the research conducted in Ukraine, which involved plague, was not offensive but defensive. The United States does, however, now provide funding to some labs in Ukraine as part of the Biological Threat Reduction Program; such “biological defense” research is intended to help protect against disease outbreaks whether “deliberate, accidental, or natural.”

Russia has long promoted outlandish claims about supposed U.S.-funded biological weapons killing off pigs and unleashing killer mosquitoes. Old KGB agents used to lie that American research labs created the AIDS virus, too. The idea of U.S.-funded Ukrainian bioweapons labs began to circulate on fringe websites as Putin’s Ukraine invasion got underway. But it was a question by a U.S. senator—and a less than perfectly clear answer by an American official—that gave the conspiracy theories new life.

During a March 8 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Marco Rubio asked Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state for political affairs, “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?” She answered that Ukraine has “biological research facilities” and expressed concern about Russian forces taking them over.

Rubio then reminded Nuland that Russian propagandists are pushing narratives about Ukrainians unleashing biological weapons in coordination with NATO. He asked her: “If there is a biological or chemical weapon incident or attack inside of Ukraine, is there any doubt in your mind that, 100 percent, it would be the Russians that would be behind it?”

Nuland replied, “There is no doubt in my mind, senator. And it is classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they are planning to do themselves.”

*snip*

[lagomorph777]

1. BJ Boy IS a troll.