Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to undermine public confidence in any coronavirus vaccines developed by the United States, according to Western officials and central European analysts.

“We have seen some of these narratives circulating already in our region,” disinformation expert Daniel Milo, an analyst at GLOBSEC Policy Institute in Bratislava, Slovakia, told the Washington Examiner. “If you would be able to convince at least a part of the population that the government is actually trying to control you by implanting a microchip, you would achieve quite an important strategic advantage, I believe, just by lowering the overall trust of the population towards official authorities.”