How a QAnon conspiracy theory about Ukraine bioweapons became mainstream disinformation

More than a quarter of Americans polled at the end of March said they believe that the United States has been developing bioweapons in labs across Ukraine — a conspiracy conceived, crafted and amplified by QAnon and the Russian government.

Five weeks ago, that conspiracy theory was little more than a fringe belief. Today, it is an official stated reason for Russia's brutal invasion. And it could be a sign of what President Vladimir Putin is plotting next.

"There's zero basis in fact for doing anything in bioweapons or any kind of research like that at all," said Robert Pope, a senior official at the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He says this pattern goes back to Soviet propaganda, trying to establish that America has been developing weapons to destroy the Russian people.

"This is purely a Russian propaganda effort to try and undermine the work the United States is doing," said Tom Moore, a non-proliferation expert who has worked in the U.S. Senate and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The smoking gun isn't even a mushroom cloud in this case. It's not even a provable vial of anthrax anywhere. We've gotten rid of all that. This is purely political."

Bioweapons remain a firm red line in international war. During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union weaponized agents like anthrax and smallpox — which could be deployed against an enemy once, then spread through person-to-person contact among military personnel or civilians — but never deployed them on any large scale.

The U.S. shuttered its bioweapons research program in the late 1960s, while the Soviets continued their development right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fears of bioweapons research have continued, however.

On Feb. 24, in the hours after Russian airstrikes began hitting military and civilian targets across Ukraine, a theory emerged that Moscow was out to destroy a clandestine U.S. weapons program in "biolabs" across Ukraine.

In the weeks before the invasion, Twitter user @WarClandestine had largely been tweeting about the occupation taking place in Ottawa. In previous months, the account also promoted QAnon conspiracy theories, telling his followers to trust "the plan" to return former U.S. President Donald Trump to power.

Then the account, run by a user only just recently identified as Jacob Creech, a former member of the Virginia National Guard, shared a map plotting "biolabs" in Ukraine. He cited "speculation" that Russia may be targeting its airstrikes for those labs.

"China and Russia indirectly (and correctly) blamed the U.S. for the [COVID-19] outbreak, and are fearful that the U.S./allies have more viruses (bioweapons) to let out," he wrote.

The tweets racked up thousands of retweets. The claims were quickly run, verbatim, on conspiracy website Infowars hours later, with a blaring headline: "Russian Strikes Targeting U.S.-Run Bio-Labs in Ukraine?"

In the days that followed, this conspiracy theory would percolate through a string of anti-vaccine, QAnon, and pro-Russian social media networks. @WarClandestine was suspended by Twitter multiple times, but screengrabs of his tweets were shared widely.

Theories like this are fairly common among those who ascribe to QAnon — which holds that there is a corrupt "deep state" in the U.S., responsible for rigging elections, developing COVID-19, and trafficking children into sex slavery. Only Trump, they believe, has been able to effectively fight this corrupt shadow regime.