Russia and China claim America attempted to remove biological weapons from Ukrainian labs shortly before the war. Those weapons are said to have been developed by America in dozens of ‘biolabs’. “I think that you should in any case take into account the considerable chance that this type of noise is intended to justify certain actions later,” Hoekstra said during a Ukraine debate in the House of Representatives on Thursday evening.
“We have seen this before with the completely misplaced accusation that genocide would take place in eastern Ukraine,” says Hoekstra. “Russia also once said that Ukraine would develop nuclear weapons. I wonder: is that creating a pretext for possible misery?”
Russia and China
Hoekstra responded to comments from D66 MP Sjoerd Sjoerdsma. He sees ‘a dangerous alliance’ developing between Russia and China. “Both Russia and China claim that there are biological facilities in Ukraine, and that they were built by the Americans. My concern is that this story could be a fictitious context for Russia’s deployment of biological weapons. As the Russians have done before in Syria, but also on the European continent.”
Hoekstra reiterated in the debate that the Netherlands is committed to an ‘evidence bank’ to collect evidence of war crimes in Ukraine. “The military invasion continues,” said the minister. Less quickly than Putin had thought, but steadily and ruthlessly. Some events are even more extreme than others. As the Netherlands, we will do everything we can to make everyone who contributes to this accountable.”