The Russian Mouthpieces Among Us

The Russian disinformation campaign over its war in Ukraine isn’t limited to Russia or to Russians. Well-known Americans with very broad audiences, including Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, are carrying a great deal of water these days for the Kremlin, and it’s very much out in the open.

Yesterday, Mother Jones published an explosive report revealing a memo produced by the Russian Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, which is part of the Russian security apparatus. It was sent out to state-friendly media outlets with a damning instruction: “Use more Tucker Carlson.” The memo explained, “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.” It summed up Carlson’s position as follows: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.” 

Reporters such as Julia Davis of The Daily Beast have noted that Tucker Carlson is a constant presence now on Russian state TV. Lately, he has been amplified there promoting the false claim by Russia that it was creating bio-weapons in its labs. He also broadcast recently that the real disinformation campaign was coming out of Washington and not Moscow. 

Not to be outdone, Tulsi Gabbard, who once ran for president as a Democratic primary contender but has moved far to the right since leaving office, and whom Hillary Clinton once famously labeled a Russian asset, has now amplified Russian disinformation about alleged biolabs run by the U.S. and Ukraine. She falsely tweeted,

There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world. We must take action now to prevent disaster. US/Russia/Ukraine/NATO/UN/EU must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured & pathogens destroyed

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) blasted Gabbard, accusing her of “treasonous lies” that “may cost lives” in Ukraine and that amounted to “Russian propaganda.” The labs in question comprise a handful of Ukrainian-run biological threat analysis and defense labs, which were put in place to deal with decades of chemical and biological weapons stockpiled during the Cold War by the Soviet Union. There is no evidence, however, that Ukraine was working on biological weapons, as the Russian government and its supporters claim. Further, experts actually actively work to destroy dangerous materials in the labs, so it is also likely untrue that the labs would release dangerous pathogens even if destroyed.

Nevertheless, the White House and the Pentagon are concerned that Russian disinformation campaigns are being used to create a pretext for the use of prohibited weapons by Russia, with a false flag that deaths arose not from Russian strikes but because of labs operated by Ukraine. Ominously, the Chinese recently have stepped in on their own social media and propaganda channels to amplify the false conspiracy claims about Ukrainian biolabs, seemingly all-too-ready to punish the U.S. for a similar deceitful ploy it generated around “weapons of mass destruction” to justify its own invasion of Iraq. 

Given the ongoing conflict and risk of escalation, the biolab false flag is a very real and dangerous strategy that U.S. intelligence is working to undermine by exposing the ploy and the truth. Those such as Carlson and Gabbard who spread the lie and create confusion increase the chances that the Russian government will carry out such an attack or use the false claim to justify further aggression, even as far as to pull NATO into the conflict under false pretenses.

The U.S. official response has been firm and clear, calling out both Russia and China a few days ago. “Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki wrote on Twitter last Wednesday evening. “It’s a clear pattern.”

While Tucker Carlson is a media figure with broad First Amendment rights, even to spread false conspiracy theories to his broad audience of listeners, Tulsi Gabbard is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve currently serving with the 351st Civil Affairs Command in California. Some former U.S. military officers have begun to call on the army to take note of her actions in spreading false Kremlin propaganda about Ukraine. Military officers enjoy far more limited First Amendment free speech rights, particularly in a time of heightened conflict with the enemy. 

The Army has yet to respond.