I had a longer discussions with some Putinversteher about this topic. Their claim was, there is a lot of leaked documents proving it, and they are being published on the internet. But they couldn't provide any link.
I did some research and all I could find was just a handful of such disclosed documents, some in english, some in ukrainian. They came from an army research facility, and were about clinical trials of a specific product, that you can probably buy legally in your country - colloidal fullerene (C60).
Yes, the researchers and test subjects were soldiers, but what kind of difference does it make? Is it forbidden under international law, or what?
Russian foreign propaganda is working by trial and error. They just try to throw everything and see what sticks. This particular topic was thrown in March 2022, when it became clear that the original goals of the invasion are impossible to achieve so they needed to present some new ones. "We did it to stop the sinister biolabs" resonated well with the QAnon-type conspiracy, so they developed it into "weaponized migrant birds" and "combat mosquitos" (but the new version never caught up with the original biolab hoax).
1) Duping naive Westerners into supporting Russia, or at least not supporting Ukraine. For this they need to have an at least tenuous connection to facts, e.g. some research labs actually existed in Ukraine (but weren't doing anything illegal), Ukraine army actually fired guns in Donbas in 2014-2022 period (but it was simply responding to Russian attacks), etc. Debunking them takes some effort and time, which explains their longevity (a thousand thanks to Mr Eastsplaining for doing the labor).
2) Being myths for the reactionary part of the Russian population (and some particularly nasty Westerners like e.g. Scott Ritter) to rally around, support Putin and hate Ukraine. For this they don't need to be rational at all, they just need to appeal to emotions, historical prejudices and colonial reflexes. There's no way to rationally debunk them, because they're not meant to be rational. The only thing you can do about people who believe in these myths is to show them (by force if necessary) that they won't succeed in imposing their will on other nations.
"Ukrainian biolabs"
I had a longer discussions with some Putinversteher about this topic. Their claim was, there is a lot of leaked documents proving it, and they are being published on the internet. But they couldn't provide any link.
I did some research and all I could find was just a handful of such disclosed documents, some in english, some in ukrainian. They came from an army research facility, and were about clinical trials of a specific product, that you can probably buy legally in your country - colloidal fullerene (C60).
Yes, the researchers and test subjects were soldiers, but what kind of difference does it make? Is it forbidden under international law, or what?
Russian foreign propaganda is working by trial and error. They just try to throw everything and see what sticks. This particular topic was thrown in March 2022, when it became clear that the original goals of the invasion are impossible to achieve so they needed to present some new ones. "We did it to stop the sinister biolabs" resonated well with the QAnon-type conspiracy, so they developed it into "weaponized migrant birds" and "combat mosquitos" (but the new version never caught up with the original biolab hoax).
IMO these propaganda topics have dual use.
1) Duping naive Westerners into supporting Russia, or at least not supporting Ukraine. For this they need to have an at least tenuous connection to facts, e.g. some research labs actually existed in Ukraine (but weren't doing anything illegal), Ukraine army actually fired guns in Donbas in 2014-2022 period (but it was simply responding to Russian attacks), etc. Debunking them takes some effort and time, which explains their longevity (a thousand thanks to Mr Eastsplaining for doing the labor).
2) Being myths for the reactionary part of the Russian population (and some particularly nasty Westerners like e.g. Scott Ritter) to rally around, support Putin and hate Ukraine. For this they don't need to be rational at all, they just need to appeal to emotions, historical prejudices and colonial reflexes. There's no way to rationally debunk them, because they're not meant to be rational. The only thing you can do about people who believe in these myths is to show them (by force if necessary) that they won't succeed in imposing their will on other nations.
I think it is more of Gish gallop kind of thing.
If something sticks it is a bonus, the real reason is just to make everyone discuss obvious bullshit instead of focusing on what really matters
Another proof that Russian claims of the "Ukrainian genocide in Donbas" are bogus: Russia itself doesn't care about proving those accusations in court: https://twitter.com/ECHR_CEDH/status/1681213685799309314