U.S. Director of National Intelligence Caught Repeating Russian Propaganda in Report on “Ukrainian Biolabs”

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been accused of using Russian propaganda materials in a presentation by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concerning the alleged “Ukrainian biolabs.”

Investigative journalist Laura Loomer voiced the allegations in a post on X.

According to Loomer, several slides in the presentation contained graphics originally produced by Russian sources. She claimed that the ODNI logo was simply added to these materials before they were presented as part of an official U.S. intelligence briefing.

In particular, she pointed to Slide 4 of the presentation, which she says contains an internal working document from Black & Veatch, a U.S. corporation that worked with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) on projects in Ukraine.

The Russian government had previously claimed that it obtained these documents during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and later incorporated them into its own official reports. A nearly identical graphic appears on page 83 of a document that Russia submitted to the United Nations Security Council in 2022, in which it accused Ukraine of developing biological weapons.

Loomer argues that this indicates the report was prepared by Gabbard’s political staff rather than by U.S. intelligence analysts. According to her, Russian materials were repurposed to support the claim that Ukraine was involved in biological weapons programs.

Loomer also drew attention to Slide 2 of the presentation, which includes an AI-generated map of Ukraine showing the locations of alleged “Ukrainian biolabs.” She noted that the map incorrectly identifies the location of Ukraine’s capital. Instead of marking Kyiv, the map appears to place the capital in a village named Kyiv located in the Mykolaiv region, suggesting a basic geographical error by the report’s authors.

The map also labels one city as “Cherniv,” apparently instead of Chernivtsi, and further claims that Ukraine has alleged “biolaboratories” in a city called “Zakarpattia,” even though Zakarpattia is a region, not a city. Loomer argued that such errors are inconsistent with what would be expected from a product of the U.S. intelligence community.

Meanwhile, the authentic U.S. intelligence documents included in the presentation do not support Tulsi Gabbard’s narrative about the alleged development of biological weapons. Instead, they describe the vulnerability of Ukrainian scientific and research facilities to Russian military attacks.

Among the documents included in the presentation is an assessment of the threat facing the National Scientific Center ‘Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine’ in Kharkiv. According to the assessment, the institute “almost certainly remains vulnerable to Russian information operations, seizure, or damage.”

“Ukrainian Biolabs”

Cooperation between Ukraine and the United States has been ongoing since 2005 under the Biological Threat Reduction Program, which aims to reduce biological risks, modernize laboratories, monitor dangerous infectious diseases, and ensure the safe storage of pathogens. One of the program’s objectives was to help eliminate any potential remnants of biological weapons left behind after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Overall, the U.S. government has invested approximately $200 million in Ukraine through the program. The funding has been used to train Ukrainian scientists and modernize 46 civilian laboratories, diagnostic centers, and veterinary institutions across the country.

The conspiracy theory about U.S.-funded Ukrainian biolaboratories first appeared in Russian propaganda before the start of the full-scale invasion, but it gained significant traction after February 24, 2022.

Russian propagandists claim that medical institutions in Ukraine are “secret U.S.-funded biolaboratories” allegedly developing biological weapons, and they use this narrative to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

In 2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and Chinese state media also repeated the claim. It was further spread among American conspiracy circles linked to QAnon and gained support among some far-right groups in the United States, including through coverage on Fox News and by Tucker Carlson.

That same year, at Russia’s request, an official consultation was held under the Biological Weapons Convention involving its member states. During these discussions, Ukraine and the United States presented detailed information about their cooperation programs, including their goals and how they operate.

The consultations found no evidence supporting claims that Ukraine was developing biological weapons or operating military biological programs.