- Russian officials have baselessly accused the US of running a bio weapons program in Ukraine.
- The White House described the claim as "preposterous" and Russian "disinformation."
- WH press secretary Jen Psaki said Russia may be setting itself up to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Russia's baseless accusation that the US has chemical weapons in Ukraine could mean the Kremlin is planning to use them, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday.
"We took note of Russia's false claims about alleged US biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine. We've also seen Chinese officials echo these conspiracy theories," Psaki said in a Twitter thread. "This is preposterous."
She said the claim was "the kind of disinformation operation we've seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years" and "an example of the types of false pretexts we have been warning the Russians would invent."
"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," she continued. "It's a clear pattern."
Psaki said the US is in full compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention and does not have such weapons anywhere.
Prior to Psaki's comments, Russian officials had spread the baseless claim that its forces had uncovered a bioweapons program in Ukraine run by the US.
Russia has repeatedly used chemical weapons to target dissidents. Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent, has been the favored weapon that Western nations have accused Russia of deploying against some of its most notable dissidents.
Germany said that Russia used Novichok against Alexei Navalny, Putin's most prominent opponent, in 2020. The UK suspects the nerve agent was also used against former Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia two years prior to the Navalny attack.
The Trump administration accused Moscow of covering up evidence of a 2019 chemical weapons attack in Syria. The West and military analysts have focused renewed attention on how Russia conducted its operations there as a potential harbinger of things to come in Ukraine.
Russia denied any sort of cover-up in Syria or that the Kremlin ordered the Navalny and Skripal attacks. But Navalny himself seemed to trick an FSB operative into revealing details of poisoning operation.