WASHINGTON, USA
The Biden administration publicly warned Wednesday that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine as the White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country it has invaded.
This week, Russian Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — accused Ukraine of
running chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support. White House
press secretary Jen Psaki called Russia’s claim “preposterous” and said it
could be part of an attempt by Russia to lay the groundwork for its own use of
such weapons of mass destruction against Ukraine.
“This is all an obvious ploy
by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and
unjustified attack on Ukraine,” Psaki tweeted Wednesday. “Now that Russia has
made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we
should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological
weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.”
The U.S. for months has warned
about Russian “false flag” operations to create a pretext for the invasion.
Wednesday’s warning suggested Russia might seek to create a pretense for
further escalating the two-week old conflict that has seen the Russian offensive slowed
by stronger-than-expected Ukrainian defenders, but not stopped.
Dmitry Chumakov, a Russian
deputy U.N. ambassador, repeated the accusation Wednesday, urging Western media
to cover “the news about secret biological laboratories in Ukraine.”
Pentagon press secretary John
Kirby on Wednesday called the Russian claim “a bunch of malarkey.”
The international community
for years has assessed that Russia has used chemical weapons before in carrying
out assassination attempts against Putin enemies like Alexey Navalny and former
spy Sergei Skripal. Russia also supports the Assad government in Syria, which
has used chemical weapons against its people in a decade-long civil war.
Asked by a Russian journalist
about the claims, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “At this
point have no information to confirm these reports or these allegations about
these kinds of labs.”
“Our colleagues at the World
Health Organization, who have been working with the Ukrainian Governments, said
they are unaware of any activity on the part of the Ukrainian Government which
is inconsistent with its international treaty obligations, including on chemical
weapons or biological weapons,” Dujarric added.
Russia has a long history of
spreading disinformation about U.S. biological weapons research. In the 1980s,
Russian intelligence spread the conspiracy theory that the U.S. created HIV in
a lab. More recently, Russian state media have spread theories about dangerous
research at labs in Ukraine and Georgia.
The conspiracy theory about
U.S.-run labs in Ukraine has been picked up by Chinese state-controlled media
and is now circulating in online message boards popular with COVID-19
conspiracy theorists and far-right groups in the U.S.
Filippa Lentzos, a senior
lecturer in science and international security at King’s College London, said
there are no “U.S. labs” in Ukraine. Instead, she said in an email, there are
labs in the country that have received money through a U.S. Defense Department
threat reduction program.
“These are public and animal
health facilities that are owned and operated by Ukraine,” she said.
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