Reject Russia's Allegations About Biowarfare Laboratory In Ukraine, Pentagon: Absurd

JAKARTA - The United States has denied Russia's new accusations that Washington operates a biowarfare laboratory in Ukraine, calling the claims "ludicrous" and suggesting Moscow might lay the groundwork for using chemical or biological weapons.

Late Tuesday, Russia repeated its years of accusations that the United States was working with Ukrainian laboratories to develop biological weapons.

Such statements in the Russian media increased ahead of Moscow's military move into Ukraine and were made as recently as Wednesday by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

"The Russian accusations are absurd, they're ridiculous and you know, in the words of my Irish Catholic grandfather, a bunch of malarkeys. It's nothing. This is classic Russian propaganda," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

In a separate statement, also released on Wednesday, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Russia was "inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own appalling actions in Ukraine."

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, citing what she called Russia's "false claims", wrote on Twitter: "It is Russia that has a long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons, including in the attempted assassination and poisoning of President Putin's political foes. like Alexey Navalny."

There was no immediate response from the Russian embassy in Washington to the US statement on Wednesday. Russia has always denied accusations of carrying out an attack on Navalny.

Reported earlier, on Wednesday, Zakharova said Russia had documents showing Ukraine's Ministry of Health had ordered the destruction of samples of plague, cholera, anthrax and other pathogens before February 24, when Russian troops moved into Ukraine.

Zakharova said documents unearthed by Russian forces in Ukraine showed "emergency efforts to remove evidence of a military biological program" financed by the Pentagon. He did not provide further details about the document.

Reuters could not independently confirm the information. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian Presidential Spokesman said: "Ukraine categorically denies such accusations."

To note, like many other countries, Ukraine has a public health laboratory that researches ways to reduce the threat of dangerous diseases that attack animals and humans. His laboratory has received support from the United States, the European Union and the World Health Organization.

The Pentagon's Biological Threat Reduction Program has worked closely with the Ukrainian government to ensure the safety of pathogens and toxins stored in laboratories. Amid similar biowarfare allegations in 2020, the US embassy in Kyiv issued a statement saying its involvement was to ensure "dangerous pathogens don't fall into the wrong hands."

A former US official, familiar with the cooperation between Kyiv and Washington, said the United States had helped turn several Ukrainian laboratories that had been involved in the former Soviet Union's biological weapons program into public health facilities.