Russia accused Ukraine of developing biological weapons. Credit: US Army, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0/ WikipediaRussia’s allegations that Ukraine with U.S. assistance is developing biological weapons will be raised at a United Nations Security Council meeting scheduled for later on Friday.
The allegations have been dismissed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and officials in Washinton as “laughable”.
The allegations have been made a number of times, most recently on Wednesday by Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, and Dmitry Chumakov, a Russian deputy UN ambassador.
Chumakov urged Western news outlets to investigate the “secret biological laboratories in Ukraine” and Zakharova said Russian troops had found documents in Ukraine showing an “emergency attempt to erase evidence of military biological programs”.
‘A bunch of malarkey’
The US has dismissed the claims as “laughable” and White House press secretary Jen Psaki described them as “preposterous”, adding: “This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further pre-meditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine.”
