The Russian president has waged his long campaign by means of open media, secretive trolls and shadowy blogs that regularly cast American health officials as patronizing frauds. Of late, new stealth and sophistication have made his handiwork harder to see, track and fight.

Even so, the State Department recently accused Russia of using thousands of social media accounts to spread coronavirus misinformation — including a conspiracy theory that the United States engineered the deadly pandemic.

The Kremlin’s audience for open disinformation is surprisingly large. The YouTube videos of RT, Russia’s global television network, average one million views per day, “the highest among news outlets,” according to a U.S. intelligence report. Since the founding of the Russian network in 2005, its videos have received more than four billion views, analysts recently concluded.

Because public interest in wellness and longevity runs high, health disinformation can have a disproportionally large social impact. Experts fear that it will foster public cynicism that erodes Washington’s influence as well as the core democratic value of relying on demonstrable facts as a basis for decision-making.

“The accumulation of these operations over a long period of time will result in a major political impact,” Ladislav Bittman, a former Soviet bloc disinformation officer, said in explaining the Kremlin’s long-game rationale.

Sandra C. Quinn, a professor of public health at the University of Maryland who has followed Mr. Putin’s vaccine scares for more than a half-decade, said the Russian president was drawing on an old playbook. “The difference now is the speed with which it spreads, and the denigration of the institutions that we rely on to understand the truth,” she said in an interview. “I think we’re in dangerous territory.”

Mr. Putin has disseminated false and alarming health narratives not only about pathogens and vaccines but also about radio waves, bioengineered genes, industrial chemicals and other intangibles of modern life. The knotty topics often defy public understanding, making them ideal candidates for sowing confusion over what’s safe and dangerous.

Analysts see an effort not only to undermine American officials but also to accomplish something more basic: to damage American science, a foundation of national prosperity. American researchers have won more than 100 Nobel Prizes since 2000, and Russians five. Geographically, Russia is the world’s largest country, but its economy is smaller than Italy’s.

jumper524:
If it comes to a game of honesty, that country called America I can never believe them.

That fraudulent exchange rate they put Nigeria and many other countries all in the name of smart economics is enough reason for me not to support that country.

jumper524:
If it comes to a game of honesty, that country called America I can never believe them.

That fraudulent exchange rate they put Nigeria and many other countries all in the name of smart economics is enough reason for me not to support that country.

globalresource:


Your belief has nothing with what is going on now. If you think USA is the snake, I bet that you are about to see the Anaconda. China/Russia bn the super power nation will be worse

internationalman:
No country can trump God's own country..

USA is a blessed country.. They come first in almost everything. It's not a coincidence..

God bless America.

daddytime:
Hmmm....

Trump isn't the best fit to lead the US at this critical time.

Putin has got him by the balls.

EnkayDezign4:


Yes we get the usual bragging about American exceptionalism, but did you watch and get the gist? do you also understand how we might just be witnessing the collapse of America?

EnkayDezign4:


Yes we get the usual bragging about American exceptionalism, but did you watch and get the gist? do you also understand how we might just be witnessing the collapse of America?