NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The United States sees an increasing risk of the use of biological or chemical weapons by Russia in the Ukraine war. “Propaganda” circulating from Moscow about the alleged production of weapons of mass destruction by Ukraine could be an excuse to use them yourself, said Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Jeffrey Prescott of the German Press Agency.
“Russia has made these new false claims. We have seen that China has supported this propaganda. And so we should be on the lookout for Russia possibly using chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine or launching a false flag operation,” Prescott said.
“Russia’s use of chemical weapons, including attempted assassination and poisoning of Putin’s political enemies, including (Alexei) Navalny, is well documented,” Prescott said. In addition, Moscow supports the “Assad regime” in Syria, which has repeatedly used chemical weapons. Russia has also long maintained a biological weapons program in violation of international law. The allegations now circulating against Ukraine are “exactly the kind of false pretense that we have been warning for several months that Russia would invent.”
Russia has accused Ukraine of developing nuclear or biological weapons. Only on Monday did the Russian Ministry of Defense claim that there was a network of biological laboratories in Ukraine working on behalf of the US Department of Defense. However, international fact-checkers have long since invalidated this claim. The UN also said it knew nothing about weapons of mass destruction allegedly produced in Ukraine./scb/DP/ngu