Has the plague broken out in Russia?

On the evening of Friday 2 October, Daria Shipilova, an employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, died in a district hospital in the Russian city of Shelekhov. Her place of work, and the rumoured circumstances of her death, have triggered a public health emergency in the region and a slew of questions: did the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, kill Shipilova? Could this metastasise into a plague epidemic in Russia? Should we – abroad – be worried?

The Russian authorities have done their best to play down the link between the plague and Shipilova’s death. According to Russia’s public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, Shipilova had been diagnosed with pneumonia of ‘unknown etiology’ – i.e. of unknown origin.

Irkutsk’s regional governor, Igor Kobzev, announced that a ‘particularly dangerous infection’ had been identified, without specifying a particular diagnosis. Later, Kobzev took to social media to insist that the situation in the region was ‘stable’ and that approximately 200 people who had recently interacted with Shipilova had been tracked down and were being monitored.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the authorities’ vague pronouncements on the incident, many questions remain unanswered about what killed Shipilova. Yersina pestis is, despite its mediaeval associations, still naturally occurring in Russia – although cases of human contraction are rare and can usually be treated quickly with antibiotics. Pneumonic plague is the most dangerous form of the disease: it can pass from person to person via respiratory particles, with symptoms appearing within 24 hours of infection. Incidentally, and somewhat eerily, the Irkutsk region is also where scientists hypothesise that plague first originated 5,000 years ago.

Shipilova had, according to some suggestions, recently conducted a study trip to the Mongolian border (where an outbreak of plague had been reported in August). Another rumour has suggested that Shipilova contracted the disease in Thailand – although given there have been no reported instances of the plague there, this theory doesn’t appear to have legs.

The leading theory as to how Shipilova may have contracted plague, if indeed that is what killed her, is, perhaps naturally, related to where she worked. Some reports have suggested that Shipilova may have broken a test tube containing the plague pathogen whilst working in her laboratory, contracting the disease that way. Nevertheless, some experts have subsequently pointed out that, given the expected nature of the personal protective equipment she would probably have been wearing to enter and work in the lab, infection in this way would seem very unlikely.

Adding to the confusion and growing alarm, Shelekhov city authorities first issued a warning advising against travel to the city, but this was deleted from social media just hours later. According to local media reports, five hospitals in the region have been placed under a three-week quarantine with doctors ‘openly talking about plague’. Ambulances transporting those who had been in contact with Shipilova for testing were, in some cases, reportedly accompanied by patrols from the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service. This has, among other things, prompted unsubstantiated rumours online that the lab Shipilova was working in was conducting classified government work, such as on a bio-weapon.

Rumours of the plague and the authorities’ lack of transparency are, unsurprisingly, causing unrest among locals. Antibiotics have reportedly sold out in pharmacies across the Irkutsk region, and people are stocking up on masks and hand sanitiser. Google searches for the word ‘чума’, meaning ‘plague’, have increased by approximately 2,800 per cent in the week from 29 September 29 to 5 October.

Yesterday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov urged the Russian public not to ‘listen to rumours’ and to instead follow advice from Rospotrebnadzor. But the authorities’ – frankly rather typical – obfuscation and evasive talk of ‘dangerous infections’ and ‘unknown etioligies’ has left a vacuum that has only too readily been filled with gossip and conspiracy. The public health body has since stated that ‘two cases of Covid-19 and two cases of rhinovirus infection have been identified’ among those associated with Shipilova – but at this stage it’s hard to know how much of this is the Russian state whirring into gear in an attempt to manipulate the narrative or a genuinely truthful statement.

With memories of the Covid pandemic still fresh in global memory, the European Union and America’s White House have both said that they are monitoring the situation. US president Donald Trump has even offered help to Russia in containing the spread of any disease should they need it. The Kremlin’s track record, however, on communicating both with the Russian population and foreign governments in times of crisis suggests there is little hope of transparency should this public health crisis in Irkutsk escalate. Plague or not, pigs will fly before Vladimir Putin publicly accepts Trump’s help in containing the spread of any disease.

Video Transcript Summary

The video is an Alex Jones monologue arguing that reports of pneumonic plague in Russia may be the beginning of a deliberately engineered biological false flag designed to justify escalation into a major war with Russia and potentially trigger another pandemic. This is a summary of his claims, not an endorsement of them.

Main points

Jones begins with the geopolitical situation: he says Russia is winning the Ukraine war, opposition to war is growing internationally, and Netanyahu is facing political pressure. He argues that these circumstances create incentives for Western/globalist actors to manufacture a new crisis.
He focuses on reports that pneumonic plague has appeared in Russia and that two researchers at a secretive laboratory have died. He says the circumstances "don't add up" and suspects the disease could be weaponized.
His central prediction is that the outbreak could be presented as a Russian biological attack or accident, giving Western governments a pretext for:
- isolating Russia,
- closing borders,
- escalating the Ukraine conflict,
- mobilizing public opinion for war,
- and potentially imposing pandemic-style restrictions domestically.
Jones repeatedly points to former U.S. biological-weapons officials allegedly describing Russian research into "chimeric" bacteria. He interprets the appearance of those officials in media coverage as evidence that a narrative blaming Russia is being prepared.
He draws a parallel with COVID-19. Jones repeats his longstanding claim that COVID originated from U.S.-supported gain-of-function research in North Carolina that was subsequently moved to Wuhan, and says the same pattern could now be repeated with Russia being blamed for a biological incident.
He argues that Russia has little logical incentive to deliberately release a dangerous pathogen inside Russia itself, whereas Western governments supposedly have an incentive to use such an event to rally international opposition to Russia.
Jones also cites what he describes as anti-Russian/NATO social-media accounts immediately calling for Russia to be isolated, interpreting this as evidence of coordinated propaganda.
He warns that the disease might not actually be spreading naturally from Russia and speculates that it could eventually be released elsewhere and attributed to Russia.

Broader war prediction

Jones places the alleged biological threat within a much larger prediction of imminent escalation. He says possible future false flags could include:

a nuclear detonation blamed on Russia,
an attack on a nuclear power plant,
drone attacks in Germany or Poland,
or a biological attack attributed to Russia.

He says European countries are preparing for war and points to military mobilization, discussions of conscription, Macron's nuclear rhetoric, and Putin's warnings about nuclear war as evidence that the situation is becoming extremely dangerous.

Pandemic/lockdown warning

Jones says the ultimate danger isn't simply an attack on Russia. He believes another pandemic could be used domestically to recreate what he calls "COVID tyranny":

lockdowns,
mandatory vaccination,
restrictions on movement,
international health agreements,
and greater governmental control over individuals.

He therefore urges viewers to reject what he calls "normalcy bias" and prepare for the possibility of another major pandemic and/or war.

His level of certainty

Importantly, Jones does acknowledge uncertainty. Near the end he says the Russian outbreak could be "a bunch of hype" or merely preparation for a future false flag, and says he isn't sure what is actually happening. Nevertheless, he says he sees the "signatures" of a planned operation and describes this as potentially "the big false flag."

Bottom line: Jones's thesis is that a reported Russian plague outbreak could be deliberately exploited—or potentially engineered—as a biological false flag, with Russia blamed for it in order to manufacture public support for a wider war and eventually impose another round of pandemic controls. His argument rests heavily on circumstantial timing, his interpretation of media coverage, and his broader belief that the COVID pandemic was itself the product of a biological-weapons operation.

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