Paper short abstract:

From Colorado Beetles to Combat Mosquitoes: How Conspiracy Theories about Secret Biolaboratories Appeared in Russia and Became a Pretext for the Russian-Ukrainian War

Paper long abstract:

From Colorado Beetles to Combat Mosquitoes

How Conspiracy Theories about Secret Biolaboratories Appeared in Russia and Became a Pretext for the Russian-Ukrainian War

On October 28, 2022 Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative from Russia to the United Nations, made the claim that Russian troops discovered American drones in Ukraine that can spread mosquitoes infected with dangerous viruses. This statement is not at all unique among representatives of the Russian political elite in 2022. Rather, as crazy as it sounds, it is a perfectly normal statement. After February 24, representatives of the Russian authorities justified the attack on Ukraine by the alleged ‘fact’ that secret American laboratories had been built on the territory, from where they prepared an attack on Russia with the help of animals infected with terrible diseases. Despite the absolute insanity of this argument, Russian officials and media have repeated it over and over again: about 92,000 Russian newspaper articles mentioned this topic from January to October, 2022. This argument is clearly of specific importance to President Putin. He uses this argument as a decisive one in his speeches when he talks about the danger posed by Ukraine.

The main question for analysts and anyone interested in understanding what is happening in Russia is how could this happen? Why has Russia suddenly plunged into such a biolab conspiracy?

However, there is no "suddenly" here. It all was happening gradually. And my talk will be dedicated to this actual question: how a marginal ab-conspiracy took the place of state ideology over the last 70 years.