Pro-Kremlin websites spread vaccine disinformation and antivax websites spread disinformation about Ukraine.
Most of the pro-Kremlin sites Hoaxlines monitors also publish antivax content. Antivax content is a gateway drug to the Kremlin’s alternate reality.
Remember this? Children's Health Defense published a piece that included bioweapons, Metabiota, and the DOD--the essential claims in a story that first appeared in 2017. CHD was far from the only outlet to publish it in 2022, but the claim is that they boost each others' content.
CHD is an anti-vaccine website that published a story likely written by GRU in 2017.
Here is the same story except in 2017--DOD✅ Metabiota✅ Ukraine ✅ bioweapons ✅. The original publisher is a GRU front, according to the UK.
The story also appeared in South Front in 2018. Note the author. It presents her as having written the story, but it was published by CB much earlier than her version and made no mention of her. South Front is sanctioned by US Treasury because "FSB directly operates" it.
That same author promoted the story in 2022 as linked to her previous work. The Children's Health Defense piece also mentions the same author from 2018. She identified it as the same story in March 2022 when it was popular again.
This is by no means the only example, though it is one of the easiest to show because the story is remarkably unchanged. The first iterations of the story really began between 2011 and 2013. In 2013 a similar story about Georgia appeared on Activist Post. web.archive.org/web/20220329022221/https://www.activistpost.com/2013/07/russian-official-accuses-us-of.html
According to Milton Leitenberg, who specializes in arms control and weapons of mass destruction, in 2011, "A story by a Georgian journalist, Joni Simonishvili, in Geonews, a Russian proxy disinformation
site turned to the Lugar Center in earnest." tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/10736700.2021.1964755?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Let's look at a different story and a different website. Global Research, which the State Department recognized as a prominent outlet in the Russian “disinformation and propaganda ecosystem,” has a friendly relationship with CHD.
I'll be back with another example of another outlet associated with the Russian state. I have to pull out a data viz because this particular instance is worth looking at.
A couple quotes about Fort Russ: "Geopolitica[.]ru reprints articles from Fort Russ News, including an article with disinformation that the 2016 ISIS terrorist attack in Brussels was a false flag operation carried out by the United States and NATO" pg. 52 state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pillars-of-Russia%E2%80%99s-Disinformation-and-Propaganda-Ecosystem_08-04-20.pdf
continued: "Geopolitica[.]ru and other proxy sites that proliferate Russian disinformation and propaganda often republish each other’s content. Savin...is a contributor to Strategic Culture Foundation. His articles are occasionally posted on Global Research and Fort Russ News."
"Fort Russ News, the pro-Russian media arm of the Belgrade-based Center for Syncretic Studies."
motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/a-new-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-claims-covid-contact-tracers-are-stealing-children/#:~:text=fort%20russ%20news%2C%20the%20pro-russian%20media%20arm%20of%20the%20belgrade-based%20center%20for%20syncretic%20studies
Fort Russ's website is no longer live (at least that I can see), but it used to be a very active fan of RFK jr. An example of Fort Russ support in 2020:
April 9, 2020
web.archive.org/web/20200409235832/https://fort-russ.com/2020/04/robert-f-kennedy-jr-exposes-bill-gates-vaccine-dictatorship-plan-cites-gates-twisted-messiah-complex/
April 29, 2020
web.archive.org/web/20210919163941/https://fort-russ.com/2020/04/kennedy-we-have-allowed-ourselves-to-become-bill-gates-guinea-pigs/
This 2018 article mentions the Center for Syncretic studies and Geopolitica[.]ru, which I mentioned in a previous tweet. It is or was closely tied to Fort Russ. The next three tweets contain a quote from the linked article. polygraph.info/a/russian-news-site-poses-as-american/6741848.html
ibid: "The authors who get bylines also share some key details. For example, Luis Lazaro Tijerina is described as an American from Salina, Kansas, who “has contributed many essays to the Russian think tanks, Katehon[.]ru and Geopolitica[.]ru.”
ibid: "Both “think tanks” are connected to Alexander Dugin, a far-right-wing Russian ideologue who supports the Kremlin. Another author, Joaquin Flores, also writes for a “Belgrade-based think tank” known as the Center for Syncretic Studies, another Duginist front organization."
ibid: "Flores has also contributed to Iran’s Press TV and the Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik."
E. Rosalie @erosalie.infoepi.com
@Info_Rosalie
Public health + national security • Johns Hopkins alum • Tracking mysterious weaponized pigeons and FIMI • Most likely building a database somewhere