Sunday, March 07, 2021

Wall Street Journal: Russian disinformation campaign is working to undermine confidence Covid-19 vaccines used in the US


https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/07/politics/russian-disinformation-pfizer-vaccines/index.html

 

By Devan Cole, CNN
Updated 4:42 PM ET, Sun March 7, 2021

Russia's intelligence agencies have been working to undermine confidence in the development, safety and efficacy of two of the coronavirus vaccines being used in the US, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Citing conversations with US officials, the Journal said Russia is making use of online publications to wage the disinformation campaign, with one State Department official identifying four outlets that have "served as fronts" for the effort.
Though the newspaper noted that the outlets' readership is small, the sites "played up the vaccines' risk of side effects, questioned their efficacy, and said the US had rushed the Pfizer vaccine through the approval process, among other false or misleading claims."

"We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services," the State Department official told the Journal. "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."


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