News Brief – March 18, 2020

Illustrating how even a health scare can be used for propaganda purposes, the media in the UK and US are now suggesting that Russia is exploiting Coronavirus.

The New York Times, for example, suggests that Russia was not only supporting “White supremacist groups”, it was also using the Coronavirus scare in order to “corrode and divide” the West.

So it seems that Russia will stop at nothing to undermine the West. Or so the corporate media and the EU would have us believe.

Thus the Financial Times reports on a Kremlin backed disinformation campaign on Coronavirus.

According to the FT:

”Russian pro-Kremlin media have mounted a “significant disinformation campaign” to aggravate the coronavirus pandemic crisis in western countries by destroying confidence in the emergency response, according to an internal EU report.

“The effort aims to stoke “confusion, panic and fear” and stop people obtaining good information about the contagion, as part of a broader strategy to “subvert European societies from within”, the European diplomatic service analysis says.”

Put this together with claims that Russia was meddling in U.S. internal affairs in order to secure a second term for Trump:

And you would think that we are in a new Cold War with the Western media taking every opportunity to defame and denigrate Russia.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail also claims that Russia is blaming Britain for Coronavirus.

According to the Mail:

“Kremlin-backed media has broadcast propaganda which states Covid-19, the new form of coronavirus, was created as a tool for the benefit of the UK”.

However, the giveaway comes when the Mail acknowledges that the information it uses was “collated by EUvsDisinfo, a project of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which is funded by the European Union”.

In other words both the Times’ and the Mail’s reports are based on information from a European Union sponsored propaganda outfit.

EXCLUSIVE: Russian media blames BRITAIN for the coronavirus outbreak: Propaganda accuses UK of ‘smearing something in Wuhan’ and links the virus to Salisbury novichok attack

• EXCLUSIVE Kremlin-backed media has broadcast propaganda blaming UK
• Outrageous slurs include that the British ‘smeared something in Wuhan’
• Pieces of disinformation were broadcast by Kremlin-funded Sputnik & Russia 1
• Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?

Sian Boyle – Daily Mail March 17, 2020

Russian state media has blamed Britain for the global coronavirus pandemic.

Kremlin-backed media has broadcast propaganda which states Covid-19, the new form of coronavirus, was created as a tool for the benefit of the UK.

As Britain continues to fight the pandemic rapidly gripping the world, outrageous slurs in Russian media include that:

• The British ‘smeared something in Wuhan’ in the same way that they ‘smear[ed] nerve agent on Skripal’s door handle’;

• The pandemic was intentionally timed with Britain’s exit from the EU to enhance its global status;

• Porton Down, the Salisbury laboratory at the centre of the Skripal Novichok scandal, ‘patented a vaccine’ for Covid-19;

• ‘There is a special operation ongoing’ related to the virus whose ‘players are the British-American Alliance’;

• Covid-19 was accidentally created as a bioweapon in 2015 at the Pirbright Institute in Woking;

• Coronavirus is an attempt to gain access to Chinese markets, because ‘Churchill…said England doesn’t have friends or enemies… only business interests’.

Last night Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, commented on the Mail’s findings and said: ‘We take disinformation extremely seriously and have brought together cross-government capabilities to give the most comprehensive picture possible.

‘People must have access to the correct information and we are working with tech firms to […] make sure the most reliable sources are promoted online.’

Britain was first targeted with Russian coronavirus propaganda at the end of January, two days before the first official case was confirmed in this country.

The five pieces of disinformation analysed by the Mail were collated by EUvsDisinfo, a project of the European External Action Service (EEAS), which is funded by the European Union.

Continues …