Canadian PM Mark Carney Pledges Support for Ukraine, Highlights Anti-Disinformation Project

In his first official visit to Kyiv on Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reaffirmed his country’s financial commitment to Ukraine, including support for a $3.5 million King’s College-led project combating disinformation about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Speaking in Sophia Square on Ukraine’s 34th independence anniversary, Carney expanded on his June pledge of $2 billion in military assistance made during the Canadian-hosted G7 summit. The comprehensive support package includes “security and stabilization assistance,” with the anti-disinformation project representing a significant component.

The initiative, co-led by King’s College Associate Professor Dr. Filippa Lentzos, addresses an increasingly sophisticated form of information warfare that has become a hallmark of modern conflict, particularly in Eastern Europe.

“It’s like you’ve got the propaganda of the past on steroids,” Dr. Lentzos explained, describing how disinformation has evolved into a strategic weapon aimed at eroding institutional trust and disrupting political processes.

European concerns about targeted disinformation campaigns intensified following Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, leading to the formation of the EU’s Foreign Information and Manipulation Interference strategy and the EUvsDisinfo initiative. However, the current project specifically addresses chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) misinformation, an area where false narratives can have particularly destabilizing effects.

Russia’s 2022 allegations of Ukrainian “military biological activities” – a euphemism for biological weapons development – exemplifies how disinformation operates in international security contexts. According to Lentzos, such allegations aren’t necessarily meant to be believed but rather to create procedural disruption.

“Formal meetings had to be set up, Biological Weapons Convention expert delegations had to wade through hundreds of pages of supposed evidence, detailed rebuttals had to be prepared,” Lentzos noted. “Of course there was no actual evidence, but it wasted an enormous amount of time and resources, and it kept the political focus away from the Russian atrocities in Ukraine.”

Carney’s explicit mention of the Countering WMD Disinformation project during his Kyiv address sends a powerful message about Canada’s commitment to information integrity in international security matters.

“We were obviously very pleased that our initiative was showcased,” said Lentzos. “It shows the importance that Canada and other G7 states put on our work and the importance of collectively responding to disinformation in a strategic way.”

The project team is developing multiple tools to support governments and institutions in combating disinformation. These include educational videos, social media campaigns, briefings, outreach exercises, and rapid response analyses. A particularly notable innovation is a publicly accessible database tracking instances of chemical and biological weapons disinformation in international security forums.

This visual resource creates an interactive timeline that helps identify patterns and spikes in disinformation campaigns, offering valuable context for analysts and policymakers.

King’s College is executing the project in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, One Earth Future’s Open Nuclear Network, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Now entering its second three-year phase, the initiative will expand its focus primarily to Africa, while continuing work in other regions.

Dr. Lentzos’s involvement in this project reflects the integration of academic research and real-world applications at King’s College. Beyond her teaching duties in the Department of War Studies, she chairs the WHO Technical Advisory Group on the responsible use of life sciences and dual-use research, serves as a rostered expert for the UN Secretary-General’s Mechanism for Investigation of Alleged Use of Chemical or Biological Weapons, and coordinates NGO activities for the Biological Weapons Convention.

The project’s significance has grown as disinformation increasingly shapes global conflicts and threatens international security frameworks, making Canada’s support a notable contribution to maintaining the integrity of factual information in high-stakes geopolitical discussions.