hey everyone, 

this is an extra edition of our brief on emerging popular disinformation trends. It is exclusive for our Science+ partners and is put by our Science+ Disinfo Task Force team. Normally, this newsletter dives deep into medical disinformation. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted us to explore a new phenomenon - the overlap between sources who were previously spreading false narratives about COVID-19 and vaccines, and those who are now generating fake news and myths about the war in Ukraine.

By the way, has your outlet produced any fact-checking and research into disinformation? We would love to feature your work in this newsletter. Please send us your contributions and links to science@fpee.eu.

here is what’s in store for you this week:

• in this special edition of Narrative Break, we examine this sudden overnight flip of medical disinformation sources into spreaders of Russian propaganda about Ukraine. Of course, we are bringing all the receipts, too.

 BREAKING THE NARRATIVE  

MEDICAL DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNS FIND A NEW TARGET - UKRAINE. In a recent article, The Guardian’s Melody Schreiber points out that since the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, medical disinfo bots seem to have gone on holiday. Schreiber notes that there’s been a significant decrease in social media posts spreading disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines. But the Russian bot farm hasn’t been taken offline. It has simply repositioned to a whole different area - war propaganda.

SEISMIC MEDICAL DISINFO SHIFT UNDERWAY. In the past two weeks, journalists, researchers, and fact-checkers within our network have started alerting our Disinfo Task Force about a seismic shift in coordinated disinformation efforts, which have pivoted from medical issues to geopolitics. These efforts have been driven by fake accounts on social media, amplifying various myths, conspiracies, and Kremlin rhetoric supporting the Russian attack on Ukraine. But the key to this campaign has also been influential personalities and online communities, including on Telegram, that up until late February were focused on reinforcing the anti-vax movement.

“GROUPS WHO WERE PRIMARILY ENGAGED WITH SPREADING DISINFORMATION ABOUT COVID-19 AND VACCINES HAVE VERY QUICKLY REORIENTED TO THE WAR IN UKRAINE. With the same passion, they are now spreading the same big narratives created by the pro-Kremlin propaganda,” said Ralitsa Kovacheva, editor in chief of our Bulgarian partner Factcheck.bg, who spoke with “Narrative Break”. 

OVERLAP BETWEEN SOURCES OF MEDICAL FAKES AND NEW ANTI-UKRAINE PROPAGANDA IS SELF-EVIDENT. Kovacheva shares the results of her team's preliminary analysis with us and it confirms the trend in Bulgaria, too. Now sources of pandemic disinformation and propaganda narratives are actively justifying the need for what Russia calls “a special military operation” in Ukraine. The Russian attack on numerous Ukrainian cities has so far caused thousands of civilian deaths and forced over 2 million people to flee the country.

“Political parties, public speakers, experts, professors, and other types of intellectuals are legitimizing this rhetoric. In the same way in which ‘experts’ legitimized such statements during the COVID-19 crisis,” she tells us. 

DISINFO EXHIBIT FROM BULGARIA. One example Kovacheva gives is with Bulgarian MP Kostadin Kostadinov, leader of “Vazrazhdane”, a far-right party with the fewest seats in parliament. In late 2021, Kostadinov was elected on the promise of removing the green certificate after gathering support from anti-vax communities. But in recent weeks, Kostadinov’s party has shifted to criticizing the government for its pro-Western position on the war in Ukraine and for supporting sanctions against Russia. He also suggested Bulgaria should be “denazified” as well, echoing Kremlin’s genocidal rhetoric for the Ukraine invasion. 

Here are several other Ukraine disinformation narratives Disinfo Task Force found within communities known to spread medical fakes.

NARRATIVE 1: GROWING DISINFO TREND FOR CHEMICAL, NUCLEAR, AND BIO SCARE. At the same time, conspiracy theories have been pushed forward by Russian-connected outlets in the region (beyond, too) and amplified on social media, aiming to convince the public that Ukraine is planning a chemical or nuclear attack. Our partners at DRFLab examined the unsupported claim of a Ukrainian “dirty bomb” spread by Kremlin-owned publication RIA and other sources. They note that one military expert, Igor Nikulin, who previously argued that the US created COVID-19 as a bioweapon, now says Ukraine poses a nuclear, terrorist, and biological threat. The disinformation campaign is also recycling old stories about an alleged bio lab in Ukraine financed by the Pentagon - a narrative fact-checked here by Deutsche Welle. The narrative got traction in Central Europe, too.

NARRATIVE 2: ANTI-VAX ACCOUNTS NOW SPREAD FAKES ABOUT UKRAINIAN REFUGEES, TOO. Since Poland receives the biggest number of Ukrainian war-displaced migrants, a lot of false information about individuals escaping the conflict and the hostilities began to circulate online. Many narratives that coincide with Russian propaganda occur in online communities previously known for spreading medical disinformation. Such stories are marked by a general disdain of Ukrainians and their history, as well as some type of government advantage for Ukrainian refugees in terms of medical care or the award of equal voting rights to them as Polish citizens. All of these concerns have no legal basis, because refugees escaping military actions have the right to medical treatment, and the issue of an identifying code to such citizens facilitates their functioning in another country but does not grant them the right to vote.

NARRATIVE 3: OUR ANALYSIS SHOWS THAT CONSPIRACY CLAIMS SERVE AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN MEDICAL FAKES AND ANTI-UKRAINE PROPAGANDA. Ukraine is discussed within local anti-vaccination online communities through the same-old conspiracy theory about the world government. Only now it is about their efforts to disinform the public or NATO nations' role in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, or a hate campaign against non-Ukrainian refugees or Ukrainian nationalists who allegedly despise all things Russian and European decadents. The goal of such narratives is to disinform and influence the public's anxiety rather than to inform them about the issue.

DISINFO EXHIBIT FROM POLAND. Our analysis of anti-vax disinfo communities in Poland also spotted examples of justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine, claiming that military action is a strategy to deflect public attention away from more pressing matters or denigrating Ukrainian migrants by portraying them as neo-Nazis and fascists planning terrorist attacks in Poland. All of these stories are part of Russian propaganda used to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent war crimes, as well as to manipulate polish public opinion by causing fear and hatred of refugees. 

NARRATIVE 4: RUSSIAN AGGRESSION IS USED TO BACK UP COVID-19 DENIAL. Another example of anti-vaccination disinformation sarcastically claims that vaccination is a method to destroy the people, implying that if the coronavirus was truly a menace, Russia's leader would not have begun the war. In reality, the prevalence of COVID-19 and the necessity to vaccinate the general public have not decreased. Because of war actions, figures on the disease's occurrence in Ukraine are now unavailable, however, vaccination of Ukrainians is provided to refugees in other countries for free.

MAIN TAKEAWAY: Factcheck.bg’s Ralitsa Kovacheva believes that the immediate refocusing of coordinated disinformation efforts after the start of the Russian invasion demonstrates the strength of already established networks: “We are seeing that there is an infrastructure, which is clearly well organized. This infrastructure works constantly and can quickly adapt to the topic of the day.”