Russian propagandists come up with a new story about battle locusts attacking Russia
Russian propaganda told Russians that Ukrainian fighters were growing locusts from the US in a hangar.
Insects walked out of the hangar and attacked crops in Luhansk Region and Russia. This was reported by Ukrayinska Pravda, citing Russian propaganda media
Russian propaganda presented a woman in a military uniform who, they claimed, discovered a 2019 letter in a sanitary station. In this letter, a Ukrainian brigade is allegedly asked to "escort a shipment from Washington Research University in Missouri to the territory of the Luhansk regional fish processing plant".
The woman goes on to say that she "looked on the internet" and discovered that a laboratory at that university was breeding combat insects and conducting experiments on locusts in "bomb-making".
The woman claims that the conditions in Luhansk oblast are ideal for "easy and quick" breeding of locusts. Russian propaganda then shows the woman walking around the hangar:
'The large amount of sawdust and sand here in the hangar indicates that locust larvae may have been here - a substrate for their development or for their storage before being released into a breeding medium,' she says.
The camera then captures allegedly "locust wings" that happened to be on the floor. It also shows the allegedly burnt locusts, which the woman says something happened to them under the influence of chemicals.
Smoke bombs were made from saltpetre, which created a dense barrier to keep the locusts from flying downwind. Locals say the locusts did not fly at first. "It came out on foot in the direction of that stream (shows his hand), and when they started burning everything, it got up and started flying towards 'LNR' and Russia," it is reported.
Another alleged military member tells us that puddles on the ground of the hangar indicate that chemicals were being unloaded here, and viewers are shown an allegedly "poisonous" puddle.
The woman claims in front of a Russian audience that the same size locusts that appeared in July indicate that they are of unnatural origin. She refers to "local ecologists". The propaganda then shows alleged witnesses to the locust raid.