The account, and others linked to it, do seem to legitimately belong to an American, whose first name is Jacob and who has occasionally posted images and video of himself-in one TikTok video, he says he served in the U.S. “He is 100% going after the alleged bioweapons.”
“It certainly appears Putin is targeting the cities and locations with #USBiolabs present,” the account tweeted. The most recent incarnation of this conspiracy theory seems to have begun with the moderately prominent-and now suspended-Twitter account which posted two maps comparing Russian airstrikes and “US biolabs in Ukraine.” Yet the conspiracy theory emerged with new purpose this week. The conspiracy theory even pushed the Security Service of Ukraine to debunk the allegation of American-run bioweapons facilities in 2020. Chinese state media has repeatedly spread the false claim that the coronavirus originated from the U.S. The conspiracy has received past 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 United States had been secretly working on biolabs and had 16 in Ukraine alone. A close advisor of Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has accused the United States of developing “more and more biological laboratories … mainly by the Russian and Chinese borders.” 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. The Russian government has laid the groundwork for this conspiracy for some time. 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. On unregulated platforms, such as Telegram and 8chan, the conspiracy theory has become incredibly popular, racking up hundreds of thousands of hits each day. And yet, the theory is being shared thousands of times, faster than regulated social media networks can yank the conspiracy theory down. This theory hangs on the entirely discredited idea that the coronavirus was designed as a bioweapon, perhaps by the U.S. Pro-Russian channels and QAnon conspiracy theorists think Moscow is launching airstrikes on Ukraine to destroy bioweapon-manufacturing labs in order to prevent the American infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci from creating a sequel to the COVID-19 virus.
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