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The United States wants a nuclear disaster to happen at the Zaporizhzhia NPP in order to wipe out any evidence of their biological weapons labs, reads a false narrative disseminated by the Russian government media. In fact, no Western state wants to see a nuclear incident, all the more so as it might have a powerful global impact, whereas the laboratories manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine are a fabrication of Russian propaganda.
NEWS: “The Ukrainian government is a puppet. All decisions are coordinated by the Western secret services, one way or another. This is why we must not rule out the fact that the purpose of shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is to trigger a nuclear disaster. From across the ocean, the USA will be safe from the fallout of a such a catastrophe, and the blast may very well bury many of their dirty secrets. Take, for instance, the dangerous laboratories that were producing biological weapons in Ukraine.
Perhaps they want the radioactive clouds to conceal any trace of the activity of these biological weapons laboratories, or they simply seek to destroy part of the Russian world”.
NARRATIVE: The USA will cause a nuclear disaster in Ukraine to conceal evidence of their biological weapons laboratories.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: An explosion at the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe could have a global-scale impact and a domino effect, given that the cloud of radioactive residue will affect a large territory. Depending on weather conditions and the scale of the blast, the whole world could be affected, including the USA, even if the Russian media says it lies “across the ocean”. In fact, there are documented precedents: the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl – a smaller plant compared to Zaporizhzhia – created a cloud of radiation that spread to the entire northern hemisphere, impacting a total of three billion people. The accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant had a slightly smaller global impact, but it did make the world rethink the role of nuclear plants, with long-term effects on global energy markets.
The USA has repeatedly called on Russia to put a stop to any destabilizing actions around the Zaporizhzhia plants, which endanger the future of mankind. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, labeled the actions of the Russian army as “the height of irresponsibility”.
The position of the USA and other Western states that have a vested interest to ensure nuclear security on the planet came as early as 2016, when the UN passed a resolution whereby the international community expressed its commitment never to repeat the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred on the territory of Ukraine on April 26, 1986. Any nuclear incident would harm the whole world, not just a particular state, the resolution states.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has repeatedly asked that Russian forces leave the premises of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, of which they had taken control in March, shortly after the start of the invasion on February 24. The United Nations have equally appealed to Russia to demilitarize the NPP perimeter.
For its part, Russia accuses Ukraine of bombing the plant, whereas the Russian state media writes the West is actually pulling its strings. “No one would actually believe Ukraine might hit its own nuclear power plant, creating a high risk of a nuclear catastrophe on its own territory”, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Sergey Kyslytsa said in a statement. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the precarious state of the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
At the same time, the Russian media reverts to the topic of biological weapons laboratories on Ukraine’s territory. This time around, the two false narratives which had been previously circulated separately in the last six months, have now intertwined in a single metanarrative.
The truth is Ukraine never hosted laboratories manufacturing biological weapons, funded by the USA. In 2007, Ukraine adhered to the Convention on the Non-Proliferation of Biological Weapons (BWC). Despite this fact, in recent years the Russian media has kept cautioning the public in ex-Soviet states with respect to the existence of American-Ukrainian cooperation in the field of biological research. The agreement between Ukraine and the USA in this field is presented by the Russian media as an element conducive to the manufacturing of biological weapons. In fact, such cooperation agreements exist in the case of other former Soviet countries too, and prior to 2012 the USA had been cooperation with Russia in this field as well. The history of this false narrative goes farther back in time. Ever since 2020, the US Embassy in Kyiv reacted to the false claim, stating the USA has no secret laboratories on Ukraine’s territory.
Moscow is yet to produce concrete evidence to substantiate the existence of a secret laboratory manufacturing biological weapons in Ukraine. The topic of biological laboratories was used by the Russia media to justify its invasion of Ukraine. More often than not, the shelling of Ukrainian cities was presented as an attempt to destroy these American laboratories.
Veridica has debunked a number of false narratives related to this topic. In March, the Russian media wrote that America’s secret laboratories in Ukraine were synthesizing coronavirus. At the start of the invasion, the Kremlin’s spokespersons claimed Russia destroyed American laboratories in Ukraine producing biological weapons. In April, the Kremlin-linked media wrote that Ukraine used chemical and biological weapons to attack Russian-held positions, with the use of military drones. In May, the media disseminated another false narrative, according to which the EU fears the tuberculosis synthesized in NATO labs in Ukraine.
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