Russia and US Trade Chemical Weapons Accusations

Russia presented evidence of U.S. ties with biolabs and Washington sees a pretext for a future Russian attack.

Russia and the United States have traded accusations in recent days about Washington’s links with biological research laboratories in Ukraine and what the U.S. describes as Russian pretexts to justify a possible chemical attack, which has been rejected this Friday by Moscow as “something unimaginable.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that the issue of biolabs and the biological-military activities of the United States “will be constantly reproduced” on the U.N. platform from the Russian side.

In that regard, he stated: “We raised this issue in the Security Council, and this is not a one-time issue; this issue will become constant in our country, because it is directly related to risks, threats to international peace and security. This is how and in this vein we will raise questions about non-transparent military biological activities around the world.”

Also on Thursday, it transpired that the Russian State Duma will study the participation of U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, in the work of biological laboratories in Ukraine. At the same time, data released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine show a clear connection between the activities of these institutions and a similar laboratory in Georgia.

Earlier, on Thursday [March 24], Biden warned that Washington will respond if Russia uses chemical weapons in Ukraine and has assured that those reprisals will depend on the “nature of the use” of that type of weapon, all after participating in the NATO and Group of Seven summit and before participating in the European Council on Friday.

For his part, Russia’s permanent representative to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, on Friday rejected Western attempts to blame Russia for planning the use of chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine: “This is an unimaginable accusation against Russia,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said that the United States should explain to the world what the objectives of its biological warfare projects are and why there is no detailed information about them: “We cannot help but ask, what is the real purpose of these American projects? Why has the U.S. not made the details of these projects public? What is the connection between the U.S. biological laboratories abroad and the U.S. Department of Defense?”