DISINFO: UK’s smear campaign aim to discredit Russia’s vaccine
SUMMARY
The British government has repeated its allegations that accuse Russia of piracy and theft of the important information about the progress of laboratory and clinical research on the emerging coronavirus. The British authorities, in their smear campaign against Russia, are seeking to express doubts about the effectiveness of the Russian vaccine in treating people, forgetting that it has gone through several development stages and has been used in clinical trials that have proven successful.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory. The article provides no evidence to support its claim that accusations about Russian-sponsored cyber-espionage against organisations involved in COVID-19 research aim to discredit the Russian anti-COVID vaccine. The claim repeats a recurrent disinformation narrative denying any involvement of the Russian government in hacker attacks and cyber-crime. This narrative rejects as baseless and absurd any accusations of Russian-sponsored hostile cyber-operations against Western targets, and often claims that such accusations are motivated by “Russophobia” or seek to distract the attention of Western public opinion from real problems. The claim does not reflect reality. On July 16, 2020, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) - together with Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) – issued a report on the targeting of COVID-19 vaccine development by the APT29 cyber-espionage group (also known as ‘the Dukes’ or ‘Cozy Bear’). The report assesses that APT29 is almost certainly part of the Russian intelligence services and that throughout 2020, APT29 has targeted various organisations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, highly likely with the intention of stealing information and intellectual property relating to the development and testing of COVID-19 vaccines. This report is based on serious investigative work and reflects the genuine concern of the UK, US and Canadian governments about the cyber-espionage activities of Russian intelligence services. The report has nothing to do with alleged efforts to “discredit the Russian anti-COVID vaccine”. Russian state actors have been proven to be actively involved in hostile cyber-operations, including malicious cyberattacks, hacking of foreign states and entities, as well as running disinformation campaigns. For further background see here and here. The World Health Organisation, WHO, insists that a vaccine must undergo thorough testing before being introduce to the market. Read a similar case claiming that the Dutch government’s accusations against Russia for the 2018 cyber-attacks on the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are groundless.