U.S. reportedly links Russian intelligence to disinformation campaign against COVID-19 vaccines

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
(Image credit: FRED TANNEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States has identified a Russian-led disinformation campaign seeking to undermine confidence in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, an official with the State Department's Global Engagement Center told The Wall Street Journal.

The official said four websites that U.S. intelligence has marked as fronts for Russian intelligence have exaggerated the risk of side effects associated with the Pfizer shot and other Western vaccines and falsely questioned their efficacy and speed of their approval process. The sites don't have large readership numbers, but officials are reportedly concerned they could be amplified.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.