On Tuesday, FBI director Christopher Wray dropped a nuclear-level bombshell.
In an interview with Fox News, the nation’s top G-man finally admitted what much of the world already believes: That COVID-19 “most likely” originated from an incident in a Chinese government-controlled lab in Wuhan – with emphasis on incident, not accident.
Wray’s public confirmation of a viewpoint that his agency has apparently held for “quite some time,” came a day after the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Energy (DOE) had reached a similar conclusion.
According to a classified report presented to the White House and members of Congress, DOE officials — many overseeing national laboratories that conduct biological research — now agree that the COVID pandemic “most likely” came from a lab leak.
These revelations arrive after three years of claims by everyone from the US government to major spy agencies to Washington’s COVID policy dictator, Dr. Anthony Fauci, that “natural occurrence” was the only possible cause of the coronavirus pandemic.
It wasn’t the Wuhan virology lab that released the virus; the very lab where US-funded research was occurring, they insisted.
Rather, the virus originated in a slaughterhouse nearby. And anyone who dared to stray from the party line, including medical professionals, was labeled a wild conspiracy theorist, racist, or both.
Watching as the COVID pandemic scandal unravels, I can’t help but flashback to my birthplace, the USSR, and the Chernobyl nuclear accident that took place 37 years ago in Soviet-era Ukraine.
Indeed, the COVID lab-leak sham now transpiring in my adopted homeland eerily reminds of the Soviet cover-up orchestrated in the aftermath of the worst nuclear disaster in world history.
There are stunning similarities between the tactics employed today by Washington – and Moscow decades ago – as the ruling classes clamor to prevent their citizenry from learning the truth.
On the night of April 25-26, 1986, an explosion and fire destroyed the Chernobyl 4 reactor about 60 miles from Kyiv, sending a radioactive cloud into the air that spread across the Soviet Union and northern Europe.
Much like initial US efforts to minimize the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, the Soviets denied early reports that an accident had even taken place.
Indeed, an order to evacuate the area didn’t arrive until 36 hours after the accident.
It wasn’t until Sweden, Finland, and Denmark reported unusually high levels of radiation that the Kremlin finally acknowledged the situation.
Meanwhile, people were already dying from acute radiation syndrome (ARS), suffering from nosebleeds, nausea and vomiting as the government drafted “volunteers” from across the country to assist with the clean-up.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who flip-flopped on every possible COVID-related issue – from the effectiveness of masks to the benefit of the vaccine — would have been proud of the masterful denial and deception campaign unleashed by Soviet apparatchiks on both domestic and international audiences.
Much like Fauci contended that masking was unnecessary in the pandemic’s first months, Soviet government-controlled media called Western reports about the accident unfounded, claiming that everything was under control.
“The problem is getting better,” a Soviet Embassy official in the United States assured curious minds in the US government after the accident.
Meanwhile, Soviet news presenters insisted to their fellow countrymen that “the trouble has passed.”
As for Fauci, turns out those early mask messages were merely an attempt to conserve scarce protective gear in the face of likely shortages.
During the Chernobyl period, I was a Moscow university subject, like everyone else, to heavy anti-American indoctrination.
We dismissed those early news reports as Western disinformation.
A French teacher even told the class that she had received a letter from her mother, who lived in a village not far from the contaminated area, inviting her to visit that summer.
Years later, I found out that my own mother and aunt went to Chernobyl to visit my uncle, who had been drafted to help with the disaster.
My mother died seven years later at 55 from unknown causes, my uncle later died from thyroid cancer, and my aunt is struggling with cancer now.
Thousands of Russians perished from illnesses such as cancer.
And yet, we were not allowed to ask any questions.
Even today, Chernobyl’s total death toll and long-term health effects remain unknown owing to a lack of accountability by the Soviet-era government.
More than 40 years later, I was shocked to see a similar coordinated effort to obscure the origins of the COVID epidemic.
Orchestrated by Big Government – in collusion with Big Tech and the Big Media – the goal was to distort and shut down any candid public discourse about this critical national security issue.
US spy agencies concealed from Congress, and therefore the American people, that COVID-19 demonstrated clear consistencies with China’s biological warfare doctrine and Beijing’s long-term programs to weaponize viruses.
This, despite the fact that the State Department knew as early as 2005 that China operates an offensive biological weapons program.
Aided by a left-leaning media – here playing the role of the Communist-era newspaper Pravda – the goal was to demonize anyone, including medical professionals, who strayed away from the party line.
The Soviet government’s motivation for the Chernobyl coverup, according to an archived KGB report, was “to prevent panic and provocative rumors.”
Perhaps the US authorities possessed similar motivations more than three decades later. Whatever the thinking, as someone who fled autocracy for democracy, I am hopeful the new covid disclosures will compel our government to stop resorting to Soviet-styled disinformation – and begin providing Americans with the real information they need to protect their health, and even their survival.
Rebekah Koffler is the president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, a former DIA intelligence officer, and the author of “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America.” Twitter: @Rebekah0132
