Used to be the National Enquirer would located the made up stories in a remote part of China or Russia. Something along the lines of 'Two-Headed boy born in Siberia'. Weird things happening in weird places. It also made the stories harder to check. Russia was 'behind the iron curtain'.

I suspect that when Russian creative writers wish to place their fantasies in an exotic location on the map the Good-old USA seems quite remote. Siberia and China are right next door so they won't do the trick. The US is, by international norms quite an oddball nation and full of contradictions. Big cities but wide open spaces. Cowboys and universities. High-tech with an open contempt for knowledge and learning. Always looking like we are about to explode into riot and revolution it has been looked that way for most of our 244 years.

So making up lies about millions of Americans dying from mysterious causes sounds almost plausible.

It is somewhat comforting to see that it isn't just the US that has more than its fair share of bogus media outlets pedaling creative writing as news.