>Newport News
Public health officials, including the honorable HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and celebrated physician Dr. Mehmet Oz, will gather at the White House today for a closed-door “risk assessment” meeting about an alleged pneumonic plague death in Russia. President Trump will not be present; he’s currently on the campaign trail supporting Republican candidates.
According to the story, a 28-year-old lab worker at a Siberian plague institute accidentally shattered a test tube holding live virus. Soon after, she developed pneumonia, was placed on a ventilator, and died two days afterward. Russian authorities have dismissed the plague story as fake news propaganda and said that the victim, Darya Shipilova, died from pneumonia of “unknown origin,” possibly acquired during a recent trip to Mongolia. Nonetheless, Russia’s dramatic response to even a single lab-acquired infection rang alarm bells and spawned conspiracy theories. Five medical facilities within 150 kilometers of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute were allegedly placed on lockdown, and Russia quarantined 187 citizens who had close contact with Ms. Shipilova.
Her death and Russia’s seemingly histrionic response raised valid questions: Why wasn’t Ms. Shipilova wearing PPE while handling a virulent, highly transmissible virus in a BSL-4 laboratory? Why wasn’t she given antibiotics, which are very effective against pneumonic plague? Why the secrecy? Concealment and non-disclosure fuel conspiracies, and sprawling tales of the plague institute being a secret bioweapon laboratory surfaced on social media.
The Kremlin has denied that assertion, calling it fantastical garbage. Our FSB source, Andrei Zhakarov, said the agency ascribes the bioweapon lab story to Ukrainian agents either seeding or amplifying fictitious nonsense on social media.
“Ukraine make lies,” Zhakarov said. “No lab leak. If a test tube broke, safety failsafe would contain it. Postmortem of Darya Shipilova found no plague in her. No plague in quarantined people—many already released. Ukrainian, how you say, shit-starters at Ministry of Defense make this shit up to make us look incompetent and scare people. Stir up fear of another fake pandemic coming. Deep State is global, you know.”
Additionally, yarns about a second plague victim and five hospitals implementing quarantine lockdown were also sown by Deep State agitators, one of whom, Zhakarov said, the Kremlin has already identified and will “deal with” in short order. Zhakarov insinuated that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense had either planted a mole at the plague research institute or bribed a legitimate employee to “leak lies.”
“If the FSB finds spy or traitor—fast justice. No trial. Many people fall out of high windows in Russia. It’s waste of money to bring guilty people to trial,” Zhakarov said.
This article was written on 10/7 and published on 10/8. At the time of publishing, RRN had no news on the White House meeting. Should we gain insight, especially if it contradicts Zhakarov’s statements, we will post an update.