DISINFO: Ukraine and the US army planning a provocation with biomaterials
SUMMARY
US biological laboratories remain operative, as shown by a series of documents in the hands of the Russian army. Kyiv and the Pentagon are coordinating fresh attacks with dangerous pathogens with the goal of incriminating Moscow.
RESPONSE
There is no evidence backing the claim about US and Ukraine’s preparation of a provocative action with biological materials, nor wider allegations about “US biolabs”. The ultimate goal of this disinformation story is to promote a years-long baseless narrative about US bio-laboratories for military purposes, falsely portraying US-funded research facilities in Ukraine and other countries as military sites, as pro-Kremlin disinformation deliberately blurred the line between biological weapons and biological research.
This disinformation campaign has been repeatedly debunked, including by the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, but pro-Kremlin outlets and Russian authorities continue promoting it with growing intensity since 2022 to justify Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that Russia presented evidence of US biolabs in Ukraine at the convention on biological weapons, that new evidence of US military-biological activity emerged in Ukraine, that disease outbreaks in Ukraine are linked to the activity of US biolabs, that Zelenskyy ordered the destruction of evidence regarding the development of biological weapons, or that bio-experiments in US labs turned Ukrainian soldiers into ‘most cruel monsters’.