Traditionally, the primary role of intelligence agencies and special services has been national defense. In the case of the Russian Federation, an additional task—discrediting its enemies—is already well-known, utilizing tools and narratives developed during the Soviet era, as highlighted in the previous article on hybrid measures related to U.S. elections.
In today’s article, Propastop continues to examine the narratives of the Soviet Union and Russia, focusing on how the topic of biolabs and health has been employed by both the Soviet Union and Russia.
Operation Denver: The American Origin of HIV
Soviet and Russian propaganda exhibit astonishing overlaps not only in their core narratives but also in the use of very specific themes. This continuity can be observed in narratives related to biolabs and bioweapons.
One of the most well-known narratives was created by Operation Denver (sometimes referred to as Operation Infection) — a disinformation campaign conducted during the 1980s, claiming that HIV and AIDS did not originate in Africa but rather from the Fort Detrick bioweapons laboratory in the United States. The operation coordinated the activities of friendly media outlets in various countries to more effectively disseminate the false narrative. Scientists were also involved, often incentivized in some way, to produce “studies” that purportedly proved the man-made origins of AIDS.
Denver primarily spread in Third World countries. One of the key sources in the execution of Denver was a fictitious study by East German professor Jakob Segal. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, former KGB officer Vasili Mitrokhin confirmed that Segal was a KGB agent who knowingly disseminated disinformation. The study was first presented in 1986 at the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Harare, Zimbabwe. Since HIV originated in Africa, the alternative narrative about its American origin helped mitigate the reputational damage faced by African leaders.
The disinformation also spread to some extent in the United States, creating a sort of feedback loop — the KGB used material from U.S. conspiracy theorists to shape its messages, while these theorists increasingly relied on information fed by the KGB.
In later years, Yevgeny Primakov, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, admitted that Russia had organized the smear campaign against the United States. The impact of Denver can still be felt today. A 2005 study by the RAND Corporation revealed that half of African Americans believed HIV was man-made, and 12% thought it was created in a CIA laboratory. Even Barack Obama, during his first presidential campaign in 2008, had to spend significant time explaining that the U.S. government did not invent HIV to infect Black people.
Narratives about the “true” origins of viruses were similarly adapted for the Ebola outbreak and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fort Detrick is used in social media analysis as a warning signal — if someone claims that AIDS was created at Fort Detrick, it is almost always the case that this person is receiving information from disinformation channels.
You can read more about Operation Denver in Thomas Boghardt’s article published in the journal Studies in Intelligence.
The COVID-19 Pandemic: Monkey Vaccines and Actor Patients
Russia successfully replicated its disinformation tactics regarding biolabs and infectious diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic. As Western countries rapidly conducted vaccine research following the outbreak, Kremlin intelligence services launched aggressive attacks on the reliability of Western vaccines, with Pfizer and AstraZeneca becoming primary targets.
The propaganda aimed primarily at discrediting the West in the Third World, deepening internal polarization within Western societies, and promoting Russia’s own Sputnik vaccine. Although anti-lockdown protests occurred in nearly every Western country, including Estonia, it is impossible to determine the exact extent to which they were influenced by Russian propaganda. However, Russian narratives undoubtedly contributed to the internal division of Western societies.
Source: Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service
China also actively engaged in COVID-related propaganda, though its strategy differed from Russia’s. China’s goal was self-justification — to prove that it was not responsible for the pandemic. This included efforts to counter the widespread early belief that the pandemic originated from a leak at the Wuhan biolab.
To spread propaganda, Russian intelligence services created numerous fake websites designed to look like credible news outlets. However, the content on these sites came directly from Moscow. These websites referenced each other to create the illusion of quality information and diverse sources.
Russia also exploited humanitarian aid sent to other countries as part of its propaganda efforts. A notable example is Italy: in March 2020, Russian armed forces sent trucks loaded with diagnostic equipment and disinfectants to Italy. The Russian propaganda machine immediately launched a narrative claiming that Russia came to the aid of a European country when neither the EU nor NATO did. Alongside the military personnel, GRU agents were reportedly sent to Italy, likely to gather valuable information about the then-unknown coronavirus.
It can be assumed that during the pandemic, a network of Kremlin-aligned disinformation spreaders was built, which was later utilized to disseminate anti-Ukrainian narratives following the outbreak of full-scale war in February 2022. Fact-checkers in several countries observed that nearly all conspiracy theorists active during the COVID-19 pandemic switched almost overnight to sharing anti-Ukrainian propaganda. While not all of their followers were Kremlin supporters, this narrative shift within familiar information channels made them particularly susceptible to Russian propaganda.
Similar propaganda techniques were used in both anti-vaccine and anti-Ukrainian information channels. One argument from conspiracy theorists was that the COVID-19 pandemic was a fabrication and that all the patients shown on television in hospitals were actually actors. This closely mirrors narratives in anti-Ukrainian propaganda. For instance, Kremlin propaganda claimed that the civilians hit at the Mariupol maternity hospital were hired actors, or that the news footage of mass graves in Bucha showed supposed body bags moving in the background of the camera frame.
The narratives related to the COVID-19 pandemic have also been covered by the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service in its 2021 annual report.
Ukrainian Biolabs: Infected Mosquitoes and Birds
The biolab narrative made a comeback at the start of the war in Ukraine. Russia’s stated “justification” for the war was that Ukraine posed a threat to Russia’s security. In March 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that several biolabs in Ukraine were developing bioweapons for use against Russia—particularly deadly viruses and methods for their delivery.
Screenshot.
What are these Ukrainian biolabs in reality? After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Department of Defense launched a scientific program to establish biological laboratories in former Soviet republics to study infectious diseases and other public health topics. Several such labs were set up in Ukraine under this program.
The narrative was also adopted by China, which echoed Russia’s claims that the U.S. was using Ukrainian biolabs to develop bioweapons. This theory gained considerable traction among far-right groups and conspiracy theorists. For instance, the infamous U.S. talk show host Tucker Carlson stated in one of his episodes that “the U.S. government has launched a propaganda campaign aimed at concealing the true activities of Ukraine’s biolabs.” Naturally, Carlson has provided no evidence to support his claims.
Donald Trump, upon being re-elected as president, appointed Tulsi Gabbard as the new intelligence chief. After the start of the full-scale war in 2022, Gabbard publicly alleged that the U.S., in cooperation with Ukraine, had secretly worked on creating dangerous biological pathogens.
Source: Screenshot from a Russian Ministry of Defense video.
The war in Ukraine is not the first time Russian propaganda has tried to spread the biolab narrative. Back in 2007, Russia briefly banned the export of biological materials (such as hair and blood samples) because FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev claimed they were being used abroad to develop a genetic weapon that would target only Russians. The same narrative was used about a decade later against the Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Georgia. The Lugar Center, also funded by the U.S., focuses on studying and preventing pandemics and the spread of infectious diseases. In 2017 and 2018, Russia’s propaganda machine spread fake news that the lab was actually developing a bioweapon threatening Russia’s security, allegedly being tested on Georgians. Occasionally, it was even claimed that the coronavirus originated from this Georgian lab.
The biolab narrative continues to be used to this day. As recently as July this year, a Russian media outlet falsely reported an outbreak of dengue fever in Ukraine, baselessly blaming U.S.-funded biolabs for the spread of the fever. Naturally, there was no dengue fever outbreak in Ukraine. In September, Russia’s most influential domestic propaganda outlet, Channel One, claimed that Ukraine had tested a biological weapon on its own population.
About the Soviet Union’s Biological Weapons Program
Why is the biolab narrative so appealing to the Soviet Union and Russia? As with all other narratives, the golden rule applies here: Russia accuses the West of doing exactly what it does itself. The Soviet Union’s biological weapons program was the largest, oldest, and most expensive in the world. The program was led by the organization Biopreparat, officially a civilian institution researching the prevention of infectious diseases, but in reality, it managed the development of biological weapons at numerous locations across the Soviet Union. At its peak, the institution employed over 65,000 people and researched pathogens causing plague, smallpox, anthrax, and the Marburg virus.
Screenshot.
Although Russia accuses the West and Ukraine of viruses allegedly leaking from Ukrainian biolabs, such incidents can be found in Soviet history. According to leaked data and whistleblower reports, in the spring of 1979, bacteria causing anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) leaked from the secret lab Sverdlovsk-19 due to worker negligence. The wind carried the bacteria over what is now known as Yekaterinburg, resulting in up to 100 deaths. At the time, local authorities attempted to explain the fatalities as being caused by contaminated beef (infected meat is indeed the primary mode of transmission for anthrax, as the disease does not spread from person to person). Later investigations revealed that the spread of bacteria was caused by an error made by a lab worker.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia reportedly continued its biological weapons program. In the early 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin admitted that the Soviet Union had developed biological weapons in violation of international regulations. However, a few years later, Russia retracted this admission and began accusing the United States of developing biological weapons, demanding access to U.S. military laboratories.
Just three weeks ago, Western media outlets noticed significant and rapid developments at a former Soviet biolab, Sergiyev Posad-6, located near Moscow. Satellite images revealed the construction of over ten new buildings, some of which, according to experts, strongly resemble facilities designed to handle highly dangerous pathogens.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has not denied that the biolab is being expanded but officially claims that the expansion is intended to enhance the country’s biological defense capabilities. The rapid development of Sergiyev Posad-6 indicates that Russia’s biological weapons program is in full swing, leveraging both Soviet-era expertise and propagandist tactics. The West must be prepared to address not only the potential threat of biological weapons but also the narratives associated with them.
More information about Russia’s biological weapons program can be found in The Bulletin and the book The Soviet Biological Weapons Program by Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn.
