2 years ago
President Joe Biden on Friday threatened “severe” consequences if Russia uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Biden’s warning was in response to a question following remarks Friday morning at the White House, where he announced further moves to punish Russia for waging war on Ukraine. The president announced that the U.S., along with allies, will call for revoking Russia’s most-favored-nation trade status.
“I’m not going to speak about the intelligence,” Biden said following the remarks at the White House in response to a shouted question about the potential deployment of chemical weapons by the Kremlin. “But Russia would pay a severe price if they use chemical weapons.”
The president’s threat comes on the heels of a series of warnings from White House officials this week that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine. Those statements came after the White House rejected Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova’s claim that the U.S. was working with Ukraine to develop chemical and biological weapons to use against Russian forces.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have expressed concern this week that the narrative advanced by Zakharova is an indication Russia could be planning to use the weapons against Ukrainians or as part of a false flag operation. The State Department noted on Twitter this week that the U.S. does not have chemical and biological weapons labs in Ukraine. The U.S. does support public health labs in Ukraine, which help to provide support to the government’s health department on efforts such as studying diseases like Covid-19.
U.S. involvement with these labs goes back to the Cooperative Threat Program, created by the U.S. in 1991, which was formed to help secure and eliminate what was left of the former Soviet Union’s biochemical weapons program in countries like Ukraine. Russia in recent years has spread false information about U.S. biological weapon research, and China has repeatedly endorsed the propaganda — claiming that these labs are a cover-up for secret U.S. bioweapons program.
Russia doubled down on those claims this week, ultimately calling for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday. The meeting was called just 24 hours after Russia's Defense Ministry falsely claimed it found “U.S. secret military biological projects in Ukraine.”
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby has called Russia’s claims this week “a bunch of malarkey,” and White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a lengthy warning on Twitter.
“This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine,” Psaki tweeted on Wednesday. “Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them.”
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