Russia is doubling down on its false claims that the U.S. and Ukraine are developing chemical or biological weapons for use against invading Russian forces, bringing the accusation to the United Nations Security Council on Friday.

A web of disinformation, not only from Russian state media but also Chinese propaganda outlets and even some American voices, have increasingly spread the conspiracy theory this week.

That's prompted heightened concern among U.S. and Ukrainian officials that Russia itself may be planning to deploy chemical or biological weapons against Ukrainian targets or as part of a so-called "false flag" operation.

"This makes me really worried because we've been repeatedly convinced if you want to know Russia's plans, look at what Russia accuses others of," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a televised address late Thursday, a sentiment the White House first shared Wednesday.

Ukraine does not have biochemical weapons laboratories. Instead, there are public health and veterinary health labs operated with U.S. support in Ukraine and several other former Soviet countries that provide technical support to a government's health ministry and study disease, like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

U.S. support originated with the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, launched in 1991 to help secure and dismantle the remnants of the former Soviet Union's biochemical weapons program in newly independent states, including Ukraine.

The...

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