A group of British academics has sparked wide and serious concern among diplomats after its work was used by Russia to accuse humanitarian workers in Syria of staging war crimes.

A European diplomat this week joined Amnesty International in condemning the work of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM), saying its members were either unwittingly and naively acting as agents of propaganda for the Russians, or actively support[ing] Russian disinformation.

None of the academics one of whom left his job last year after it emerged he was a supporter of 9/11 conspiracy theories is an expert in the Middle East, Syria or chemical weapons, and the group has previously been accused of whitewashing war crimes.

Yet speaking at the United Nations Security Council last week, a senior Russian official praised the recognized experts and reputable scientists of the WGSPM, citing their work as he claimed a chemical weapons attack in 2018 never happened .

The same day, another Russian official tweeted a link to the groups work that accuses the civilian search and rescue group the White Helmets of being actively involved in murdering civilians to frame the Syrian government.

There is no reliable evidence to support the theory and an investigation by the globally recognized Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that a chemical attack did occur .

Although not mandated to attribute blame, the report found chlorine gas was released from two canisters that had been dropped from the air. Syrian government and Russian forces are the only ones equipped with aircraft meaning opposition forces could not have carried out the attack.

It fits a well-documented pattern of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad against civilian targets.

A European diplomat told HuffPost UK: There is wide and serious concern about the extent to which academics in the WGSPM appear to be pursuing issues which so closely overlay with Russian lies and propaganda, particularly on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Russia appears to be using these academics to amplify and bolster their own disinformation, particularly to undermine the OPCW and divert attention from their own activities.

It is unclear whether these academics are unwittingly and naively acting as agents of propaganda for the Russians or they actively support Russian misinformation.

Either way, it is difficult to see how their involvement with WGSPM is compatible with having any official role in academia.