Russia’s ministry of defense is accusing the United States Pentagon, CDC for Ukrainian Biolabs, as well as Hunter Biden and liberal philanthropist George Soros.
QUICK FACTS:
- Russia’s Ministry of Defense reportedly released documents on Thursday meant to prove the involvement of the Pentagon and several other entities and individuals in Ukrainian Biolabs.
- Multiple United States news agencies reported on the document dump, and a video supposedly showing a Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation official talking about the documents is making the rounds on Twitter.
- Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, who is the director of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ information and press department, claimed that Russia confirmed the Ukrainian leadership was trying to quickly clean up any trace of “military and biological programs,” according to Fox News.
- The Russian minister also asserted that Ukraine was conducting with financial backing from the U.S.
- This echoed previous accusations that the Kremlin has made about Ukraine allegedly destroying samples of various pathogens. A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied the allegations, according to Reuters.
RESPONSE FROM US OFFICIALS:
- A senior U.S. defense official says the claims are “laughable” and part of a Russian disinformation campaign, according to Fox News.
- “The Russian narrative that they’ve put out there that the United States is somehow running or facilitating, you know, biological weapons labs in Ukraine and that these labs are going to pose a threat to the – this is of a piece of the Russian playbook here: claim they’re the victims, create a false narrative to try to justify their own aggressive actions,” the U.S. defense official said Wednesday. “It is absurd. It is laughable. It is untrue.”
BACKGROUND:
- Russia previously accused the United States of backing biological weaponry research in 2018 when the Kremlin alleged that the United States was supporting a lab in Georgia.
- The massive Eastern European nation claims that the United States had several labs near the borders of Russia and China.
- A spokesperson from the Pentagon denied the claims, calling it “an invention of the imaginative and false Russian disinformation campaign against the West” and “obvious attempts to divert attention from Russia’s bad behavior on many fronts.”
