Kremlin lies about Ukraine get a boost from QAnon influencer -- and then from top-rated Fox News host

False claims about Ukraine were amplified by a single QAnon influencer earlier this month but have already made their way onto the most-watched cable TV program.

The Kremlin has been promoting false claims about U.S.-backed "biolabs" in Ukraine to justify Russia's invasion, and those conspiracy theories have made their way from junk news blogs to QAnon supporters and then to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr., reported The Daily Beast.

"These accusations are built off of two far-reaching assumptions: that COVID-19 was manufactured as a bioweapon and that the U.S. would only fund research labs in order to secretly produce such weapons," The Beast reported. "As thoughtless and evidence-free as those base claims may be, many online communities that traffic in conspiratorial content accepted those assumptions years ago. Whether they choose to blame billionaire George Soros, the 'deep state,' or the 'New World Order,' assertions that the coronavirus was made as a bioweapon to justify controlling the world’s population are abundantly common in anti-vaccine and other conspiratorial communities online."

Those same assumptions have fueled resistance to pandemic safety measures, and they have found a receptive audience among American conservatives -- and some Republican lawmakers.

“Now the narratives are one of main justifications of the invasion," said Eto Buziashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Russian military officials have presented forged documents as supposed proof of these claims to justify the invasion, and those false claims have taken root among Fox-watching American audiences.

"Intentionally or not, conspiratorial influencers and audiences have contributed to a Russian disinformation campaign meant to justify its slaughter of Ukrainian civilians," The Daily Beast reported. "The seeming inability or unwillingness of right-wing media groups to self-police against its excesses and worst tendencies have given the Kremlin a gift it is sure to leverage as it intensifies its campaign to justify those horrors."