Russia's top investigative body said it had opened a probe into a Ukrainian company that formerly had ties to the son of U.S. President Joe Biden, in what likely is an effort to spread disinformation in the midst of the heated U.S. presidential election campaign.
The Investigative Committee said on April 9 that it was launching its investigation into Burisma Holdings and its alleged involvement in the financing of terrorist activities in Russia by "senior officials of the United States and NATO countries." The committee said several Russian lawmakers had requested the probe.
Burisma Holdings is a Ukrainian oil and gas company whose board of directors included Hunter Biden between 2014 and 2019.
The company has been at the center of unproven allegations for years by Republican lawmakers in the United States and others, who have claimed that then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Ukraine's prosecutor-general as a way to protect Burisma's principal owner.
The allegations have been repeatedly debunked, and outright refuted by some of the shady U.S. businessman who played a key role in spreading the original claims.
Donald Trump's first impeachment as president in 2019 was sparked by a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump appeared to condition U.S. military aid on Zelenskiy ordering a criminal investigation of Biden.
The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time told Democratic lawmakers that Trump's allies had pushed Zelenskiy to "publicly commit to investigations of Burisma."
Republican lawmakers who now control the House of Representatives made Burisma central to a push to try and impeach Biden. That effort all but collapsed in February when a key witness who claimed Joe and Hunter Biden had each accepted bribes of $5 million from Burisma was charged with making up the claims and lying to the FBI.
The allegation that "senior officials of the United States and NATO countries" were involved in financing terrorism inside Russia echoes a string of eyebrow-raising claims from Russian officials in the aftermath of the terror attack on Crocus City Hall last month, in which more than 140 people were killed.
A branch of Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility, but Russian officials have repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that Ukraine and the United States were involved.
Asked about the Investigative Committee report on April 10, White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan called it "nonsense."
"Russia knows that it was ISIS that carried out the terrorist attack in Moscow," he said.