Rashid A Mughal
ACCORDING to US-based “The National Interest” magazine, although official Russian channels had been muted on pushing the US bio-warfare conspiracy theory, other Russian media elements do not share the Kremlin’s restraint. Zvezda, a news outlet funded by the Russian Defence Ministry, published an article titled “Coronavirus: American biological warfare against Russia and China”, claiming that the virus is intended to damage the Chinese economy and weakening its hand in the next round of trade negotiations. Ultra-nationalist politician and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, claimed on a Moscow radio station that the virus was an experiment by the Pentagon and pharmaceutical companies. Politician Igor Nikulin statements made rounds on Russian television and news media, arguing that Wuhan was chosen for the attack because presence of a BSL-4 virus lab provided a cover story for the Pentagon and CIA about a Chinese bio-experiment leak. An EU-document claims 80 attempts by Russian media to spread disinformation related to the epidemic.
Sputnik was very active publishing stories claiming that the virus was invented in Latvia and that it was used by Communist Party of China to curb protests in Hong Kong, that it was introduced intentionally to reduce the number of elder people in Italy, that it was targeted against the Yellow Vests movement, and many others. Sputnik branches in countries such as Armenia, Belarus, Spain, and Arab countries came up with customized versions of these stories. In February 2020, US officials alleged that Russia is behind an ongoing disinformation campaign, using thousands of social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to deliberately promote unfounded conspiracy theories, claiming that the virus is a biological weapon manufactured by the CIA and the US is waging economic war on China using the virus. The acting assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, Philip Reeker, said that “Russia’s intent is to sow discord and undermine US institutions and alliances from within” and “by spreading disinformation about coronavirus, Russian malign actors are once again choosing to threaten public safety by distracting from the global health response”. Russia denied allegation, saying “this is a deliberate false story”.
Some people have alleged that the coronavirus was stolen from a Canadian virus research lab by Chinese scientists. Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada said that conspiracy theory had “no factual basis”. The stories seem to have been derived from a July 2019 news article stating that some Chinese researchers had their security access to a Canadian Level 4 virology facility revoked in an federal police investigation; Canadian officials described this as an administrative matter and said that “there is absolutely no risk to the Canadian public”. This article was published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), responding to the conspiracy theories, the CBC later stated that “CBC” reporting never claimed the two scientists were spies, or that they brought any version of the coronavirus to the lab in Wuhan”. While pathogen samples were transferred from the lab in Winnipeg, Canada to Beijing, China, on 31 March 2019, neither of the samples was a coronavirus, the Public Health Agency of Canada says that the shipment conformed to all federal policies, and there has not been any statement that the researchers under investigation were responsible for sending the shipment. The current location of the researchers under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is not being released. Iran’s Ayatollah Hashem Bathaie Golpayegani claimed that “America is the source of coronavirus, because America went head to head with China and realised it cannot keep up with it economically or militarily.” Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to the United Nations on March 9, claiming that “it is clear to the world that the mutated coronavirus was produced in a lab” and that COVID-19 is “a new weapon for establishing and/or maintaining political and economic upper hand in the global arena.” As of today, Russia has confirmed 232,000 cases of coronavirus – the second highest toll in the world after the US. In the last 24 hours the country has reported 10,899 infections, the tenth consecutive day that number has been above 10,000. Among the infected is President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He is the latest high profile official to test positive, after Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin caught the illness. The news comes the day after President Putin eased the country’s lockdown. Factory and construction workers returned to work on Tuesday. Despite the high number of confirmed cases, Russia’s death toll is only 2,116. Government officials say the country’s mass testing programme is responsible for that low mortality rate, but many believe the number is in fact far higher.
The president announced the end of six weeks of “non-working days” in a televised address on Monday. Russians began returning to work on Tuesday morning. “The outbreak is far from over, the president warned, saying that “danger remains”. But all sectors of the economy should begin to restart, he said – though local authorities could bring in tougher restrictions if needed to contain the spread of the virus “. Moscow is the epicenter of Russia’s outbreak, accounting for more than half the country’s cases and more than half its total death toll. The US now has more than 1.3 million confirmed cases according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker – almost six times as many as any other country. The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the US has now surpassed 81,000. The UK has the highest number of such deaths in Europe with more than 32,000 but excess deaths – which include those indirectly caused by virus – top 50,000. France’s death toll has overtaken Spain’s, putting it only behind the US, UK and Italy. A total of 348 new deaths take its overall count to almost 27,000. The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, is drawing up plans to test its entire population of 11 million people for Covid-19 after a cluster of new cases was detected.
— The writer is former DG (Emigration) and consultant ILO, IOM.
