Russian media picked up the interview of Italian anti-vaxxer Stefano Montanari, who claimed that only three people had died in Italy due to COVID-19. In reality, 3,405 people had died of COVID-19 by the time of the interview, according to worldometers data. The story received wide dissemination in social media and migrated to Ukrainian media as well. A group of Italian doctors had already denounced his claims, and even filed a criminal complaint against him.
Despite an increasing number of infections and deaths from COVID-19 worldwide, some continue to dismiss science-based facts, opting instead for conspiracies that confirm their beliefs and biases. In this case, Montanari condemned quarantine measures and claimed that it was impossible to create a vaccine against the virus, contradicting medical specialists’ efforts and ongoing research to find a vaccine.
This case demonstrates how a single source’s ill-founded judgment may be recycled in other countries without reference to the source’s background or proper vetting. Notably, the story was picked by mainstream media in Russia and fringe media in both Ukraine and Russia. It also received a boost from anti-vax communities on social media.
The origin of the story
On March 19, 2020, the Italian YouTube channel and blog Byoblu published an interview with Stefano Montanari. The description below the video explained that Montanari was a “nano toxicologist,” specializing in the study of nanomaterials and their influence on people, rather than an epidemiologist. Byoblu is run by Claudio Messora, a communication consultant for the Five Star Movement, an Italian populist political party.
In the interview, Montanari made several unproven and dubious claims. First, he falsely claimed that only three people died because of COVID-19 in Italy, arguing that the Italian healthcare system was already in ruins before the virus arrived as a result of widespread corruption. Montanari also contradicted medical experts by claiming vaccines are a hoax intended to make money off of people. Finally, he speculated that thanks to the blow the coronavirus has dealt to the Italian economy, some people could buy companies on the stock exchange for a low price and become even wealthier than before.
Following a series of similar interviews featuring Montanari, Italian doctors publicly denounced Montanari’s statements and compiled a criminal complaint against him for pushing “anti-vax conspiracies.”
Story migrates to Russian and Ukrainian media spheres
Montanari’s questionable reputation and the disavowal the medical community did not stop his statements from spreading abroad. The video made it into the Russian media sphere three days after its release, when Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article by its Italian correspondent that provided statistics on casualties in Italy and described how chronic deceases increase the mortality rate among people with COVID-19. In the second part of the article, the correspondent provided a translation of excerpts from the Byoblu video under the title “Why the Doctor-Nano Pathologist is against quarantine.” The story was published in various regional editions of Komsomolskaya Pravda, with the Crimean edition receiving 5,736 engagements.
Several hours later, pro-Kremlin and conservative outlet Tsargrad TV published a story in which the authors praised Russian aid to Italy, claiming that this experience will help Russia gain experience in fighting viruses and demonstrate that Russia is a positive member of the international community. The article mentioned a comment by Aleksandr Sladkov, military correspondent for the pro-Kremlin VGTRK, that the aid will be “a humanitarian ax in NATO’s chest.” It was republished verbatim by several fringe media outlets.
Four days later, on March 26, Russian independent outlet Novie Izvestia published the same excerpt from Montanari’s interview under the headline, “All talk about the vaccine is a scam of planetary scale.” This publication served as a gateway into the Ukrainian media ecosystem, as it was republished in Ukrainian online outlet Fraza on March 27. The republished version received 10,540 shares on Facebook. Several media outlets provided a direct link to the article and received substantial engagements too, as a backlinks analysis showed.
The Fraza article was translated into Ukrainian and disseminated by fringe media, including Fayno, BN24, Golos.biz.ua, Sitenews, White Egg, Golos.UA, and In-news. All versions of the story were exact translations, with either a hyperlink or a mention of Fraza as the source. BN24, however, published its article on March 25, two days before Fraza, according to the website’s code, but subsequently modified it on March 29 with a link to Fraza. It is impossible to note what the article looked like on March 25, but it might have been the first article published in the Ukrainian language.
At the end of March, the story hit not only Ukrainian fringe media, but also disseminated to the Russian market as well. Among them were Media Vector, Vseprovsekh, Anifashist, Rusdozor, Express Gazeta, and Tehnowar. The publication on Media Vector received 15,554 shares.
Two re-publications of the article, however, were slightly modified. The Ukrainian People’s Observer article featured some additional claims on how some European doctors believe that quarantine measures do not work, and that developing natural immunity is the way to resist COVID-19. Similarly, Russian anti-vaxxer blog Vaccine.wiki published a “Stop Propaganda COVID-19” long-read which initially featured Montanari’s statements, but later deleted them from the website. The archived version of the article is still available, however.
Roman Osadchuk is a Research Assistant with the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).
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