U.S. accuses Russia of using U.N. council for ‘disinformation’
UNITED NATIONS
The United States accused Russia of using a U.N. Security Council meeting Friday for “lying and spreading disinformation” as part of a potential false-flag operation by Moscow for the use of chemical or biological agents in Ukraine.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Russia was playing out a scenario put forth in the council last month by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken — that President Vladimir Putin would “fabricate allegations about chemical or biological weapons to justify its own violent attacks against the Ukrainian people.”
“The intent behind these lies seems clear, and is deeply troubling,” she said. “We believe Russia could use chemical or biological agents for assassinations, as part of a staged or falseflag incident, or to support tactical military operations.”
The United States has warned about such Russian operations in conjunction with an invasion.
Russia had requested the meeting to address its allegations of U.S. “biological activities” in Ukraine – a charge made without any evidence and denied by both Washington and Kyiv.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said its Defense Ministry had documents charging that Ukraine has at least 30 biological laboratories carrying out “very dangerous biological experiments” involving pathogens, and its work “is being done and funded and supervised by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the United States.”
Ukraine does have a network of biological labs that have gotten funding and research support from the U.S. — but they are owned and operated by
Ukraine and are part of an initiative called the Biological Threat Reduction Program that aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or manmade. The U.S. efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction.
“The labs are not secret,” said Filippa Lentzos, a senior lecturer in science and international security at King’s College London, in an email to the Associated Press. “They are not being used in relation to bioweapons. This is all disinformation.”
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, called the allegations “utter nonsense” and said “Russia is sinking to new depths today, but the council must not get dragged down with it.”
U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu told the council she was aware of media reports about the allegations of and said: “The United Nations is not aware of any biological weapons programs.”
Thomas-Greenfield also denied that Ukraine has a biological weapons program or biological weapons labs as Russia claimed, saying the public health laboratory facilities are used to detect and diagnose diseases like COVID-19, with U.S. help.
Thomas-Greenfield said that ever since Russia began building up forces near Ukraine’s borders, Washington’s strategy has been to counter Moscow’ tactics and share what it knows with the world.
“We’re not going to let Russia get away with lying to the world or staining the integrity of the Security Council by using it as a venue for legitimizing Putin’s violence,” she said.
Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said the accusations “may actually point at Russia preparing another horrific false-flag operation.”