RUSSIA NEVER SLEEPS

Russian intelligence agencies are waging a disinformation campaign to undermine the public’s trust in western COVID-19 vaccines, according to a State Department official.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the official, from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), identified four small online publications that are spreading false and misleading claims by playing up the vaccines’ side effects, questioning their efficacy and claiming that the U.S. had rushed the development of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine.

The official said he believes the websites are fronts for Russian intelligence, and their false narratives are being amplified by Russian and international media, the Journal reports.

“We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services,” the GEC official told the newspaper. “They’re all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States. They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.”