Russia, which announced to the Security Council that it had discovered a network of bacteriological weapons research laboratories in Ukraine on Friday March 11, provoked an outcry from Westerners, who denounced “unsubstantiated allegations” and “irresponsible provocations”. Some countries fear that Moscow has hinted at the next chapter of this war, and is using this excuse to use biochemical weapons itself.
The Russian ambassador to the UN detailed what his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had announced the day before: “A network of thirty laboratories” where are carried out “very dangerous experiments” would have been discovered by Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil, according to Vassili Nebenzia. The diplomat claims that strains of diseases such as plague or cholera, as well as products such as anthrax have been identified there. He claims that these labs were working with the US Department of Defense.
Vassili Nebenzia could have sown doubt if the American Secretary of State had not revealed the Russian scenario in advance. Before this same Security Council, on February 17, Antony Blinken suggested that Russia could use the discovery of biochemical weapons in Ukraine as a pretext to justify its own chemical bombardments.
“Conspiracy theories”
“Allegations of weapons of mass destruction are to be taken seriously, but these are part of Russian information warfare, retorted the Albanian ambassador, Ferit Hoxha. They are false, without substance, akin to the usual Russian propaganda and disinformation. These are conspiracy theories that don’t deserve to waste our time. »
“This disinformation campaign could be the prelude to the use of a chemical or biological weapon orchestrated by Russia in Ukraine”, worried the French ambassador, Nicolas de Rivière. Before recalling that Moscow had already carried out chemical attacks in Europe – by poisoning the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny in particular. And that Russia had covered up the chemical attacks of its ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria with its disinformation.
The Russian mission shared with the members of the Security Council documents of projects jointly carried out with American researchers whose The world got a copy. If there are indeed Ukrainian laboratories financially supported by the United States, this partnership, born in 1993 in the context of the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the post-Soviet space, is not a secret. . “It is work that has been done proudly, clearly and in broad daylight.explained US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. It has nothing to do with biological weapons. »