The onset of fall has brought to Russia, as it often does, flu and conspiracy theories. Back in the news is Moscow’s seasonal talk of an imminent American biological attack, to be launched from medical research labs in Russia’s neighborhood.
In this telling, Russian pigs have become the first victims of a test run for a future offensive on humans. That was the insinuation from a recent press conference by the Russian Defense Ministry, which has noted that swine flu has been spreading to Russia from neighboring Georgia, home to a U.S.-sponsored medical research laboratory known as the Lugar Lab.
As Russia’s chief TV propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov is famously wont to say: “Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
And Moscow is bracing for things to get worse. “The U.S. is systematically building its biological potential and is getting control over national collections of pathogenic microorganisms” around the world, Major General Igor Kirillov told the October 4 press conference.
https://eurasianet.org/moscow-stirs-fear-of-american-germs