DISINFO: The UK is moving specialised aircraft to Kyiv to spread mosquitoes infected with modified viruses

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

DISINFO: The UK is moving specialised aircraft to Kyiv to spread mosquitoes infected with modified viruses

SUMMARY

The UK will fund Ukraine's network of military biological laboratories. These facilities have been operational since 2005, originally funded by the US Department of Defence and subordinate to the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Before Russia's large-scale attack, the US defence team, the Cooperative Biological Engagement Programme (CBEP), had expanded its scope significantly. Among the 50,000 drones London is transferring are specialised aircraft designed to carry and spread pathogens, including larvae and adult mosquitoes infected with modified viruses such as Zika and malaria.

RESPONSE

Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about US biolabs in Ukraine.

Through repeated exposure, pro-Kremlin actors seek to present these baseless claims as established ‘truth’. Presenting unsubstantiated allegations as facts, often with minor variations, is a common disinformation technique.

Specific allegations about the presence of these facilities in Ukraine have been refuted by multiple experts, including the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu and by Russian biologists who examined Moscow’s “proof”. Nonetheless, pro-Kremlin disinformation and top Russian officials widely peddle them, even to this day, as a pretext to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a necessary ‘self-defence’ move. The claim that UK drones will carry larvae and adult mosquitoes infected with Zika and malaria to spread pathogens is a recycled Russian talking point first introduced by Russia's UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya in October 2022, which was widely mocked internationally.

Read similar cases claiming that Ukraine has drones capable of spraying containers with mosquitos to spread bioweapons, that The US collects bio-samples of Slavs to create pathogens, that Washington has created laboratories for military biological research in the states bordering Russia, that The US carries out biological provocations and invests in targeting certain races, that American laboratories in Ukraine were developing biological weapons, and that US biolabs develop toxins that target Slavic genotypes.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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