The British magazine "The Times" said that a Russian disinformation campaign based on spreading fear has begun;

With the aim of undermining the Coronavirus vaccine, which the University of Oxford is working on.

She explained that an

investigation revealed that pictures, memes and videos produced in Russia depict the British vaccine as dangerous, and that intermediaries are currently seeking to publish the images on social networks around the world.

She indicated that she obtained this information from a person participating in the Russian campaign and was concerned about the damage it could cause to public health efforts, adding that it was not clear if the Kremlin had ordered the campaign to be launched directly;

But it did get evidence that some Russian officials were involved in organizing and publishing it.

It turns people into monkeys

She said that the main theme of the distorted images of the vaccine is that the vaccine, which will be manufactured by millions of doses of it by the giant pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, could turn people into monkeys;

Because it uses the chimpanzee virus as a vector, and the campaign targets countries that Russia wants to sell its Sputnik V vaccine, such as India and Brazil, as well as Western countries.

The Times warns that this campaign could harm the Oxford program, not only.

Rather, it is about the broader global effort to protect against the virus by encouraging conspiracy theorists and the anti-vaccination movement.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot was quoted as saying that misinformation poses a clear danger to public health, and that he urges everyone to use reliable sources of information, to trust the regulatory bodies to produce vaccines, and to remember the tremendous benefits that vaccines and medicines still bring to humanity.

The British Times published this design as a sample of the designs broadcast by the Russian campaign (communication sites)

Reckless and despicable behavior

It also attributed to a British government source describing the disinformation as "reckless and despicable behavior", which could lead to real harm to people's health, adding that this type of lying harms everyone in all parts of the world, and that they need to be careful to identify this type of activity and confront it to support Provide all people with factual information about Covid-19 and vaccines.

It quoted Ken McCallum, the new director general of MI5, as saying, this week, that they are participating in protecting British vaccine research from attacks.

She said that this campaign had already started on some British and Western websites and Russian media.

Political war

The British government had warned that the Oxford laboratories had been subjected to Russian cyber attacks, and that General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of Defense Staff, accused Russia, last month, of waging a "political war" over the vaccine and promoting conspiracy theories.

The newspaper published a statement by a spokesman for the Russian embassy in London;

In it he said that saying that Russia is carrying out any kind of propaganda against the AstraZeneca vaccine is in itself an example of misinformation, and aims to discredit Russia's efforts to combat the epidemic, including the good cooperation it has established with Britain in this field, and the officials have previously accused And the Russian media in the West trying to discredit the Russian vaccine.