Disinfo: Russia has destroyed its chemical weapons arsenal while the US has not

Summary

Russia is following fully its commitments in the framework of the Convention for Chemical Weapons (CWC) and destroyed its chemical stockpile in 2017, while the United States has not done so.

Disproof

A recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative claiming that Russia shut down all its chemical weapons programmes.

In September 2017, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) did in fact confirm the destruction of the 39,967 tonnes of chemical weapons possessed by Russia. However, in the following years, it has become clear that Russia still maintained a chemical weapons programme. The most prominent signals for these assumptions came after the Skripal poisoning in 2018 and the Navalny poisoning in 2020. Both cases involved Novichok, a nerve agent which was declared to the OPCW and included in the Chemical Weapons Convention only in 2019.

Read similar cases in our database claiming that the west fabricated the Navalny poisoning story; or that Russia is ready to investigate the alleged use of Novichok; or that Russia destroyed its Novichok stockpile, but the US continues to produce it, or even that OPCW reports are made from the information provided by terrorists.

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sputniknews.gr (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 263
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 06/10/2021
  • Article language(s) Greek
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Russia, US
  • Keywords: Chemical weapons/attack, OPCW, novichok
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Disinfo: WHO's reasons to paralyse the validation process of the Sputnik V are questionable

Investigators of the WHO who visited a manufacturing plant of Sputnik V in the city of Ufa as part of the validation process of the vaccine found several problems, such as the traceability of the batches of the vaccine, the filling lines, the guarantee of sterilisation and the handling of cross-contamination hazards. Those observers didn’t question the vaccine itself but some environmental and sterilisation aspects in its fabrication. However, the WHO announced that it would paralyse the validation, not of the visited factory, but of the whole validation process of the Sputnik V at a global level.

The WHO team stated that the procedure didn’t fully adjust to what indicates the so-called ‘Good Manufacturing Practices’ or GMP. Not every country in the world sticks to this protocol, Russia being one of those who doesn’t, not because they don’t have quality standards but because their protocols are different, not necessarily better or worse.

Oct 05, 2021
Disproof

The information presented in this video is deliberately misleading. According to the preliminary report of the WHO inspection in late June, its envoys not only found the problems mentioned in this disinformation video but also “identified concerns with the integrity of data and test results of microbiological and environmental monitoring during the manufacturing and quality control activities” of the vaccine.

Experts have pointed out that this lack of sterilisation is no minor problem since it would be very dangerous to inject somebody with something that had any trace of bacteria in there at the filling stage, as the bacteria would multiply in the vial before it gets used.

Disinfo: WHO has double standards in relation to Covid-19 vaccines

If compared how the WHO reacted to Sputnik V and to the other vaccines, it's noticeable that it doesn't apply the same criteria. Batches from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were found to be contaminated in the past, but WHO didn’t question the vaccines themselves. In the case of Sputnik V, in contrast, when it found problems in a fabrication plant in Ufa, it could have issued a warning to the vaccine producers or even a recommendation to interrupt the production of the serum in that specific factory. Instead, the body decided to paralyse the validation of Sputnik V as a whole.

Oct 05, 2021
Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about a global conspiracy to prevent the success of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

The claim that the WHO follows certain interests and has double standards regarding Covid-19 vaccines is not backed by any evidence. In fact, problems with inconsistent, problematic or missing data and lack of transparency have been regularly reported regarding the Sputnik V, leading some international health regulators to mistrust it or consider the information about it insufficient.

Disinfo: US staged coup in Ukraine to provoke Russia and impose sanctions

The Americans staged a coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014 in order to provoke Russia into taking steps that would be later used as a pretext for imposing sanctions on it.

Oct 05, 2021
Disproof

This is a recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets justifying Russia’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the ensuing war in Donbas.

The demonstrations which began in Kyiv in November 2013 – called "Maidan", or "Euromaidan" – were a result of the Ukrainian people's frustration with former President Yanukovych's last-minute U-turn when, after seven years of negotiation, he refused to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, choosing instead to accept a $15 billion economic bailout to Russia.