United Nations – Russia hurriedly convened a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday morning late Thursday evening to discuss in open debate what it called ” military biological activity U.S. in Ukraine,” which led the Biden administration to immediately denounce it as a “false flag effort.”
In a comment sent to CBS News, Olivia Dalton, spokeswoman for the US mission to the UN, said: “We will not allow Russia to gasify the world or use the UN Security Council as a platform for spreading its disinformation.”
“Russia has a well-documented history of using chemical weapons and has long supported a biological weapons program in violation of international law,” Dalton said, adding, “Russia also has a history of falsely blaming the West for the very violations that Russia itself commits.”
“We warned that this is exactly the kind of false flag that Russia could use to justify a biological or chemical attack,” she said.
Friday’s meeting was announced by Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, in a tweet citing the Russian Ministry of Defense, which refers to the analysis of documents on US “military biological activities” in Ukraine, which are accompanied by half a dozen documents with graphs and diagrams.
Earlier this week, Washington warned that Russia could escalate violence in its war in Ukraine by using biological or chemical weapons, or by saying Ukrainian forces used them as a pretext.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday called Russia’s claims “absurd” and suggested that Russia itself may be laying the groundwork for the use of such weapons. “All this is an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify its further deliberate, unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also denied the allegations, calling them “absurd” and “classic Russian propaganda.”
“They’re ridiculous,” Kirby said on Wednesday. “We do not develop biological or chemical weapons inside Ukraine. This is not happening.”
Friday’s meeting will hear briefings from UN Disarmament Chief Izumi Nakamitsu and Deputy Secretary General Rosemary DiCarlo, a former US mission to the UN with the rank of ambassador.
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