Fact Check

Did a KGB Agent Confirm That the Sex Pistols Were Backed by the USSR to Destabilize the West?

A Facebook page for punk fans recirculated an old (and fake) story that the Sex Pistols were a KGB plot to foment dissent in the West.

Published May 10, 2017

 (DFP Photographic / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via DFP Photographic / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
A KGB agent admitted that the Sex Pistols were financed by the USSR to destabilize Western democracy.

On 9 May 2017, Facebook page "The Church of PUNK" shared an article reporting that a KGB agent admitted the band the Sex Pistols were an operation backed by the former Soviet Union to destabilize Western democracy:

_14__sex pistols kgb ussr

The April 2015 article reported that at the time it was published, a former KGB agent had just disclosed the punk rock plot:

Alexandrei Varennikovic Voloshin, a retired KGB agent, has admitted this week on National Russian Television (NTV) that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was behind the creation of the 1970s punk scene and financed major punk bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Ramones.

The USSR government at the time spent “hundreds of millions of rubles” on this covert operation destined to “create utter chaos” and “pervert the Western youth to nihilist, anti-establishment and anti-american ideologies” he explained in an hour long interview broadcast on national television.

There is no truth to this story; World News Daily Report states on its own disclaimer page that all of the content on the site is fictional:

WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.

Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes.