Chinese diplomats, government agencies and state media organizations have used official accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms to spread the Ukraine labs conspiracy theory. A diplomat at the Chinese Embassy in Beirut, Cao Yi, even posted the theory on Twitter in both Arabic and English.
The more than 235 Twitter posts have been split about evenly between Chinese state media accounts and diplomatic or government nonmedia accounts, Mr. Schafer said. There are many more posts on the lab theory on Chinese social media platforms.
Telesur, the Venezuelan state television network, has also amplified the lab theory from Russia, but that activity is minor compared with what China has been doing, Mr. Schafer said.
“Now that American tech platforms have taken action against Russian state media, the Chinese state media are filling the gap,” he said. “They’re mirroring Kremlin talking points.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank that tracks the Ukraine conflict, also issued a warning on Wednesday that the Russian statements could be part of an effort to lay the groundwork for Moscow’s own chemical or biological attack. “Russia may conduct or fabricate such an attack and blame Ukraine and NATO to justify additional aggression against Ukraine,” it said.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to Know
Card 1 of 4On the ground. As the war in Ukraine enters its third week, the Russian advance appears to have slowed. At the same time, destruction across Ukraine is growing, as Russia increases its targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure with long-range missiles.
No agreement. The Foreign Ministers of Ukraine and Russia met in Turkey, for the first time since the start of the war, and failed to stop the fighting. Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia declared that a cease-fire was never up for discussion.
Chernobyl nuclear facility. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that the defunct power plant had been disconnected from electricity, though there was no need for immediate alarm. A power loss could affect the facility’s ability to keep the water that cools radioactive material circulating and lead to safety issues.
On the diplomatic front. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Poland, where she repeated U.S. pledges to “defend every inch of NATO territory,” while sidestepping questions about Poland’s offer, rejected by the Pentagon, to hand fighter jets over to the United States to transfer to Ukraine.
Chinese state media have repeated the entire range of official Russian statements on the Ukraine war, from the false assertion that Ukraine is full of neo-Nazis to arguments that the United States is an “empire of lies” pulling the puppet strings of Kyiv.
Global Times, a nationalistic newspaper published by the Communist Party, posted an article on Tuesday that said the U.S. government was trying to stir up anger against China over the Ukraine war by planting stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Voice of America. Other stories in Chinese state media accused Ukraine of using civilians as human shields, a Kremlin talking point, while avoiding any mention of civilian deaths at the hands of the Russian military.