In the midst of the story on anti-vaxxers and harmful effects of vaccines, which was popular a year ago, and which was one of the topics we have written about in our latest issue of the Magazine, in the end of March on portal srbijadanas.com appeared an article, emphasizing how American Air Education and Training Command (AETC) has recently published a solicitation for the purchase of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and biological tissue originating from the Russian population. A supplier should have sent the samples to AETC, providing the information on donor’s health as well.
As the portal stated, and as it was conveyed by other media (ekskluzivnevesti.com, aktuelno24h.com, intermagazin.rs, vestinet.rs, naslovi.net, vesti.rs, srbijajavlja.rs, smedia.rs, sedmasila.rs) Russian intelligence services informed the Russian President Vladimir Putin about everything that was going on. At the 15th annual conference in Sochi on October 18th 2018, Russian President confirmed to media that an ethnic bioweapon exists and it’s already tested in the form of medicine on dogs that subsequently suffered from terrible consequences after three generations. Allegedly, according to srbijadanas.com, he pointed out that it can be applied on humans, members of certain ethnic groups, and that the weapon is directed to certain nations, even families.
Furthermore, the portal cited Russian President’s speech delivered at the Human Rights Council’s meeting on October 30th 2017: “Do you know that they are collecting biological material from the entire country and all ethnic groups – of the people living in all geographic areas of Russia? The question is: why are they doing so? What they do, they do with a specific intention. We are a subject of great interest – Russian President said and called for resolving this situation without raising panic and revealed that “some forces” were collecting biological material of European Russians throughout Russia.”
Since the article didn’t have more detailed information on this, we decided to investigate it more thoroughly.
Although the portal stated the Russian portal Russia Today as its source, that article was non-existent on this portal. What we found on this portal was a video of Vladimir Putin at the meeting in Sochi, in the think tank, club for discussion “Valday” “ (Междунаро́дный дискуссио́нный клуб «Валда́й»), where its 15th session was held in October 2018.
However, what Putin is saying in this video refers to the issue related to the recent documents presented to the media by former State Security Minister of Georgia, regarding rumours on existence of a number of states developing biological weapon and the presence of the American biological laboratories in the territories of other countries, and not to the AETC solicitation for the purchase of the Russians’ RNA. Also, in the answer to this question, Putin didn’t mention that the weapon was directed against specific nations and families.
Secondly, the recent purchase of the RNA and biological tissue of the Russians actually represents a solicitation published by Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The Command asked for collecting 12 samples of RNA and 27 samples of the synovial tissue of the Russians settled in the area of Caucasus. As stated in October 2017 by Russian portal ria.ru, they needed samples of the Russians specifically, since the first samples they had got were the samples of the Russians, and no other would have been suitable for further analysis. Also, they stated it was about the research concerning musculoskeletal systems, and these samples are needed because they are substantial for functions of joints.
Furthermore, comparing the very headline with the rest of the article on the portal srbijadanas.rs, there are no words in the article text mentioning that the genetic weapon is being given through vaccines. Putin didn’t say that neither in his statement from October 2017 nor in the one from October 2018. Taking into account that the issue of vaccines has been extremely popular in the last year, we can conclude that the headline, apart from the text itself, was designed to immediately draw the attention of the readers.
Going back to the very beginning of our story, we can conclude that the portal, either for pure sensationalism, or to sow fear among people, put together two different news, one from 2017 and the other from 2018 in order to make a story on the alleged development of the genetic weapon and its transmission through vaccines.