COVID-19 Coronavirus: EU Disinformation Task Force, “attacks from Russia on Pope and Europe about vaccines”

The fake news against the Covid-19 vaccination campaign disseminated by pro-Kremlin media outlets also target the Pope. There is evidence of this in the newsletter of the EU Task Force against Disinformation EUvsDisinfo, of the European External Action Service. Indeed, this week, the Russian website Katehon, in an article also available in English, accused Pope Francis of being “at the service of multinational companies and of a global plot to advertise the vaccine”. The fake news website claimed that the Pope had “ordered the faithful to vaccinate” and that “the Catholic faith has become a marketing department of the transnational corporations”. Moreover, Russian media outlets accuse European diplomats of “constantly interfering in Russia’s internal affairs” and argue that “Europe is looking for excuses to justify sanctions imposed on Russia”. Russia’s disinformation campaign also targets the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, arguing that they are not “real” and “effective” vaccines against COVID-19, unlike Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, which is greatly extolled in several articles. The pro-Kremlin media outlets believe that Europe is waging a real “information war” against Sputnik. In total, the EU Task Force recorded 90 disinformation cases this week.

Valentina Bombelli