One of the currently preferred rationalizations pro-Russia propagandists are using to justify the invasion of Ukraine appears to have emerged from an American social media network known for hosting QAnon, neo-Nazis and other assorted deplorables. As Justin Ling at Foreign Policy explained it earlier this month, the new theory is that “Moscow is launching airstrikes on Ukraine to destroy bioweapon-manufacturing labs in order to prevent the American infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci from creating a sequel to the COVID-19 virus.”

The notion that Ukraine has “bioweapons” and that Russia is invading to stop some dastardly Ukrainian plot didn’t even emerge until after the invasion had begun. Prior to that, the laughably thin rationale was based on Vladimir Putin’s asinine claims that Ukraine, whose president is of Jewish ancestry, is being run by Nazis. When that didn’t really fly, a new justification emerged, from what look to be American sources.

As Ben Collins and Kevin Collier of NBC News have traced — and as the Fauci-centric nature of […]