Britain and the US fear Russia could be setting the stage to use a chemical weapon in Ukraine after Kremlin officials alleged without firm evidence that the US had been supporting a bioweapons programme in the country.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that Russia had been making “false claims about alleged US biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine”, and added that the allegations had been echoed in Beijing.
“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,” she tweeted.
Her comments came after western officials said at a briefing “we’ve got good reason to be concerned about possible use of non-conventional weapons” by Russia, reflecting the experience of chemical weapon use during the Syrian civil war.
The concern arose partly because Russia’s foreign ministry had been engaged in “setting the scene” by making “false flag claims” about a biological weapons programme operating inside Ukraine.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Russia had documents showing evidence that the US had supported a bioweapons programme in Ukraine, involving plague, cholera and anthrax. Washington and Kyiv both denied the claims, which Psaki described as “preposterous”.
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