The US admitted on Tuesday that Ukraine houses “biological research facilities” with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland telling Senator Marco Rubio saying that the US is concerned the ‘research facilities’ could come under the control of Russian forces. “We are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach”, she added.
This revelation came straight from senior State Department official Victoria Nuland who said that the US was working with Ukraine to prevent invading Russian forces from seizing biological research material.
“Ukraine has biological research facilities, which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of,” Nuland told US lawmakers at a hearing when asked directly whether Ukraine has bioweapons.
The United States on Wednesday denied the Russian accusations that Washington was operating biowarfare labs in Ukraine, calling the claims “laughable” and suggesting Moscow may be laying the groundwork to use a chemical or biological weapon.
In a similar vein, the EU dubbed the reports of such labs part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Ukraine has “biological research facilities,” says Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, when asked by Sen Rubio if Ukraine has biological or chemical weapons, and says she’s worried Russia may get them. But she says she’s 100% sure if there’s a biological attack, it’s Russia. pic.twitter.com/uo3dHDMfAS
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 8, 2022
Late on Tuesday, Russia repeated its accusation of several years that the United States is working with Ukrainian laboratories to develop biological weapons. Such assertions in Russian media increased in the run-up to Moscow’s military move into Ukraine and were made as recently as Wednesday by foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
China had also called on the US to clarify if it did have such laboratories, while it called on the US to allow independent inspections on the research labs to determine the veracity of the claims.
