Russia's global "dezinformatsiya," or disinformation, campaign blaming the United States for allegedly creating the Covid-19 coronavirus and unleashing this on China is gaining traction amid Washington's feeble attempts to counter this damaging flood of fake news. The virus that causes Covid-19 or corona virus disease 2019 is the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)."
The U.S. Department of State on Monday assailed Russia for "spreading disinformation" the U.S. is behind the outbreak that now shows signs of turning into a multi-continent pandemic. State Department officials affirm Russian-linked social media accounts are spreading disinformation about Covid-19 with the central message the U.S. created the disease and is attacking China with it.
The dezinformatsiya campaign, which top state department officials say is sanctioned by Russia's highest leadership, also aims to damage America's international image by portraying the U.S. as a malignant force bent on ensuring world domination against challenges by China and Russia.
State Department officials combating this widespread Russian disinformation campaign said Russian trolls are using fake personas on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to spread lies and advance Russian propaganda about Covid-19 in multiple languages.
"Russia's intent is to sow discord and undermine US institutions and alliances from within, including through covert and coercive malign influence campaigns," said Philip Reeker, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia.
Reeker said that by spreading disinformation about the coronavirus, malign Russian actors are once again choosing to threaten public safety by distracting from the global health response. He said Russia's fake news include allegations Covid-19 is a U.S. biological weapon made by the CIA to "wage economic war on China."
U.S., intelligence services identified the disinformation campaign on January 20 after Chinese officials announced a third death from Covid-19 in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Currently, several thousand online accounts blatantly spreading Russian-backed propaganda on major events such as the war in Syria are constantly posting "almost near-identical" messages about Covid-19, according to a report by the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC). Established in 2016, GEC is charged with leading the U.S. government's efforts to counter propaganda and disinformation from international terrorist organizations and foreign countries.
GEC said the Russian fake news accounts are run by humans and not by bots. These Russian trolls post the same news at similar times in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French and can be linked back to Russian proxies. The social media messages are similar to those published by Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik. GEC reported social media posts about Covid-19 have been uploaded every day over the past month.
"In this case, we were able to see their full disinformation ecosystem in effect, including state TV, proxy web sites and thousands of false social media personas all pushing the same themes," said Lea Gabrielle, special envoy, and coordinator of GEC.
GEC believes this ongoing Russian disinformation campaign is making it harder to respond to the epidemic, particularly in Africa and Asia, with some leaders here now suspicious of the U.S. and the West.
A State Department official said Russian operatives involved in this massive fake news campaign appear to have been given "carte blanche" to attack the U.S.
"Whether or not a particular theme is being directed at the highest levels doesn't matter," said the official. "It's the fact that they have freelance ability to operate in this space to do whatever damage they can, which could have seismic implications."
In early February, a pro-Israeli media organization reports the growing dissemination by Arab media of the fake news the U.S. invented Covid-19 to cripple China.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports numerous instances were writers in Muslim countries all wrote about the same message -- Covid-19 is an American biological weapon unleashed by the U.S. on China. A few of these stories were published in Al-Watan (a liberal newspaper in Saudi Arabia), VetoGate (a leading liberal independent newspaper in Egypt) and Al Thawra (official newspaper of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad). MEMRI is a nonprofit press monitoring and analysis organization based in Washington, D.C.
