Days before Russia invaded Ukraine, all the Kremlin and its proxies could talk about was potential aggression from Kyiv.

“The armed forces of the enemy are in combat formations and are ready for the forceful capture of Donbas,” Denis Pushilin, a Russian proxy leader operating in Ukraine, claimed on Feb. 16. “President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will soon issue a decree to the military to go on the offensive and implement a plan for the invasion of the territory.”

Ukraine, of course, never did invade.

But one week after Pushilin’s remarks, Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine’s territory, claiming to be on a peace-keeping mission.

That move — accusing an enemy of an act that you are about to or have committed — is a familiar tactic from Putin. In 2017, Putin himself remarked that the “U.S. has always interfered in Russia’s elections.”

And so Western policymakers have been alarmed in recent days to see the the Kremlin begin making insane noises about a potential chemical or biological attack in Ukraine, supposedly launched out of U.S.-sponsored biolabs.

“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,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday. “It’s a clear pattern.”

As if on cue, on Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused the U.S. of trying to...

Read Full Story: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/kremlin-birds-biolabs-conspiracy-theory-uk...