The U. S. has denied Russian claims that Washington D.C. is operating biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine, calling the allegations “preposterous” and “warning that Moscow might seek to use chemical or biological weapons its invasion on Ukraine”.
The US
The US denial on Wednesday came hours after Russia renewed its accusations that Washington D.C. was working with Kyiv to develop biological weapons in the vicinity of the Ukraine-Russia border.
Jen Psaki (White House Press Secretary) called the Russian claim is “preposterous” in a series of posts on Twitter and said the U.S. “has a long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons of Moscow”.
She added, “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.”
Russian response
Earlier on Wednesday, Maria Zakharova – spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation had called on Washington D.C. to reveal information about what she called its illegal activities in Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova said Russia had documents showing the Ukrainian health ministry had ordered the destruction of samples of plague, cholera, anthrax and other pathogens before February 24, when Russian forces moved into Ukraine.
Zakharova said the documents unearthed by Russian forces in Ukraine showed “an emergency attempt to erase evidence of military biological programmes” financed by the Pentagon.
“It can be concluded that components of biological weapons were being developed in Ukrainian biolabs located in close vicinity of our border,” she said.
“The emergency destruction of dangerous pathogens on February 24 was a necessary step aimed at concealing the fact that Ukraine and the US had violated Article 1 of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.”
China’s accusations
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China meanwhile on Tuesday said the “US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone”.
China also called on the US to “give a full account of its biological military activities at home and abroad and subject itself to multilateral verification”.
The UN
When asked about the Russian and Chinese claims, a spokesperson of the United Nations said the UN has “no information to confirm” reports “about these kinds of labs”.
