EU report takes aim at Russia over vaccine fake news

BRUSSELS (AP) — Russia has launched a major campaign using ministries, companies and pro-Kremlin media to promote the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and spread fake news that the West and the European Union are trying to undermine the shot, an EU agency said in a report Wednesday.

The report, which was compiled by the strategic communications branch of the EU’s external action service — essentially the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministry — said that part of the campaign is to sow distrust in the European Medicines Agency.

The EMA, which regulates which vaccines and drugs can be put on the EU market, began a rolling review of Sputnik V last month but hasn't yet approved its use.

“The Russian campaign to promote the Sputnik V vaccine has accelerated and developed into a whole-of-government approach including state authorities, state companies and state mass media in almost daily interventions,” the report said.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund which has bankrolled Sputnik V and is in charge of marketing it abroad, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month, the Kremlin rejected similar accusations by U.S. officials and said that Russia has never been involved in any disinformation campaigns targeting other countries’ COVID-19 vaccines.

The report, on virus-linked disinformation seen between December and April, said that Russian officials “also engage in antagonistic messaging, using disinformation to accuse the West and the EU of sabotaging the Russian vaccine.”

The EU's disinformation experts accused pro-Kremlin media outlets, including the official Sputnik V Twitter account, of trying to “undermine public trust” in the EMA and “cast doubt on its procedures and political impartiality.”

The plan, the report said,...