By Xhabir Deralla
As Russian missiles and drones continue to strike Ukrainian cities, another familiar weapon has reappeared in the Kremlin’s arsenal: the claim that Ukraine is developing biological weapons with Western support.
This narrative is not new. It has circulated for years through Russian official statements, state media, proxy platforms, conspiratorial networks, and pro-Russian channels across Europe and the Western Balkans. At its core, this narrative is designed to weaponize fear, uncertainty, and distrust. It also serves to justify aggression, blur responsibility, and distract attention from Russian crimes.
Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the accusations as baseless, stressing that the country has never developed, produced, or stockpiled biological weapons and that its cooperation with international partners in biosafety is civilian, public-health oriented, and fully consistent with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
Ironically, while accusing Ukraine of developing prohibited biological weapons without presenting evidence, Russia itself has faced documented accusations regarding the use of banned chemical agents. Western governments and international organizations have repeatedly raised concerns over Russia’s use of chloropicrin and other riot-control agents on the battlefield, findings that stand in stark contrast to the Kremlin’s unsupported claims about Ukrainian biological weapons programs.
The facts have been examined before. In 2022, Russia invoked Article V of the Convention and forced an official consultative process among states parties. Ukraine and its partners provided information on the relevant cooperation programs, their objectives, and implementation mechanisms. Moscow’s allegations were not confirmed. The same issue was also raised at the UN Security Council, where Russia failed to provide evidence supporting its claims.
Yet the story keeps returning. That is because Russian disinformation does not depend on proof. It depends on repetition.
The persistence of the “biolabs” narrative illustrates an important feature of modern information warfare. The objective is not necessarily to convince audiences that a false claim is true. Rather, it is to create enough uncertainty that facts become contested and accountability becomes blurred. In such an environment, evidence matters less than repetition.
The “biolabs” narrative usually begins in official Russian channels: the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, embassy accounts, state-controlled media, and figures close to the Kremlin. From there, it moves through RT, Sputnik, TASS, Telegram channels, fringe influencers, conspiracy networks, and local pro-Russian outlets.
In Europe, the narrative often travels through anti-Western, anti-NATO, far-right, and conspiratorial ecosystems. The Western Balkans often serves as both a testing lab and a launch pad for Kremlin narratives. In the region, the “biolabs” lie is amplified by RT Balkan, Sputnik Serbia, the wider Serbian-language media space, Telegram groups, Facebook pages, and political actors who routinely present Russia as a victim of Western aggression. Increasingly, it is also pushed through automated or semi-automated networks such as Pravda / Portal Kombat. These channels repackage Russian official claims into regional language, political context, and local grievances, making Kremlin narratives appear familiar, domestic, and “alternative” rather than foreign and state-driven.
The role of Pravda / Portal Kombat is especially important. Unlike traditional propaganda outlets, this network mimics local news portals and mass-produces pro-Kremlin content across languages and regions. Its purpose is not only to reach readers directly, but also to saturate the online information space with searchable, reusable narratives – material that can later be picked up by fringe portals, social media pages, Telegram groups, and even AI systems.
The mechanism is familiar. Legitimate public-health laboratories become “secret military facilities.” Epidemiological surveillance becomes “biological weapons development.” Cooperation with the EU or the United States becomes “proof” of Western control. Facts are not always denied outright; they are stripped of context, distorted, and repackaged until they serve the propaganda objective.
This is classic information warfare. The goal is not necessarily to convince everyone that Ukraine possesses biological weapons. The goal is to create doubt, confusion, and legal, moral, and informational fog. In such an environment, facts become contested, accountability becomes blurred, and aggression becomes easier to justify.
Once that fog exists, Russia’s actions can be reframed. Bombing Ukrainian cities becomes “self-defense.” Attacks on civilian infrastructure become “preventive action.” War crimes disappear behind fabricated threats and invented emergencies.
That is why this narrative is dangerous. It is an integral part of a much broader system of manipulation. The Kremlin has repeatedly relied on similar narratives: accusations of “Nazis in Kyiv,” claims that Ukraine attacks its own civilians, stories about Western-controlled puppet authorities, allegations of “dirty bombs,” and repeated suggestions that Russia is not invading a sovereign state, but merely “defending itself.” These narratives differ in content, but serve the same strategic purpose: to reverse the roles of victim and aggressor, obscure responsibility, and provide political cover for war.
The “biolabs” lie also has a broader international function. It seeks to undermine trust in public health institutions, international cooperation, scientific research, and arms-control regimes. It turns biosafety into suspicion and transparency into alleged conspiracy.
This is why the response cannot stop at official denials. The task is to expose the machinery behind the lie: the official sources, state media, proxy networks, regional amplifiers, and local actors that turn propaganda into political noise. Media resistance means refusing to treat manufactured falsehoods as legitimate debate. It means naming the lie, tracing its route, and showing what purpose it serves.
Still, failure does not stop Moscow’s propaganda machinery. In the Kremlin’s information ecosystem, a debunked lie is not abandoned. It is archived, recycled, and tested again—step by step, phase by phase, until it finds new reach.
The return of the “biolabs” narrative should therefore be read as a signal. Russia is once again seeking to shift attention away from its own war crimes: attacks on civilians, the destruction of Ukrainian cities, the targeting of critical infrastructure, and the simple fact that, more than four years into its “three-day” full-scale invasion, it still cannot justify its war in either legal or moral terms.
That is why isolated fact-checking is not enough. The challenge is larger: confronting the infrastructure of disinformation itself, and understanding its impact on societies, media ecosystems, and democratic resilience.
After years of repeated misreadings, convenient silences, and willful blindness, the comfortable vocabulary of diplomacy and projectized civil society is no longer enough. Facts must be allowed to displace polite ambiguity. Media and democratic institutions must stop treating coordinated propaganda as merely another “viewpoint.”
Russia does not use disinformation as decoration around its war. It uses disinformation as part of the war. And the “biolabs” lie is one more example of how the Kremlin turns falsehood into strategy.
Note: This analysis builds on years of reporting by the author and the work of CIVIL’s Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team (CHTM), including regular monitoring briefings on Russian and pro-Russian disinformation narratives across North Macedonia, the Western Balkans, and Europe.
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