BANGKOK (AP) — As Russia intensifies its offensive against Ukraine, it is getting help from China to spread inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims that the US is funding bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
The US has been quick to debunk the Russian conspiracy theory, and the United Nations has said it has not received any information to support the claim, but that hasn’t stopped it from spreading.
The partnership between the two authoritarian countries, which a few weeks ago said their ties were “limitless,” appears to be aimed at muddying the ground for a Russian invasion in what U.S. officials have called an “information war” that some fear , could lay the groundwork for Operation False Flag.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry added fuel to the fire this week by repeating Russia’s statement several times and calling for an investigation.
“This Russian military operation has exposed the secret of American laboratories in Ukraine, and this is not something to be taken lightly,” Zhao Lijian, a ministry spokesman, said on Thursday.
“It’s not something they can confuse by saying that China’s statement and Russia’s conclusions are disinformation, absurd and ridiculous.”
Indeed, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called Russia’s announcement “a bunch of bullshit,” but CIA director William Burns also expressed grave concern in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday that Russia could lay the groundwork for a chemical or biological attack. its own, which will then accuse the United States or Ukraine of a false flag operation.
“This is something that, as you all well know, is part of Russia’s strategy,” he said. “They used these weapons against their own citizens, they at least encouraged their use in Syria and elsewhere, so we take this very seriously.”
Russia, China and the United States have signed international conventions against the use of chemical and biological weapons, but the international community believes that Russia used chemical weapons to assassinate enemies of President Vladimir Putin. Russia also supports the Assad government in Syria, which has used chemical weapons against its own people in a decade-long civil war.
Moscow initially claimed that its invasion forces had uncovered evidence of hasty attempts to cover up bioweapons research in Ukraine.
Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, doubled down on Thursday, saying US-sponsored labs in Kyiv, Kharkov and Odessa were working on dangerous pathogens specifically designed for Russians and other Slavs.
“With a high degree of probability, we can say that one of the goals of the United States and its allies is the creation of bioagents that can selectively infect various ethnic groups,” Kirillov said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a similar statement on Thursday, claiming that US-run labs in Ukraine were working to “develop ethnic-targeting biological weapons.”
The UN Security Council scheduled a meeting on Friday at Russia’s request to discuss Moscow’s statement. Olivia Dalton, a spokeswoman for the US mission to the UN, said the US delegation will not allow this to become “a platform for their disinformation to spread.”
China, however, actively promoted the claim, posting headlines such as “Russia reveals evidence of US-funded bioprogram in Ukraine” and “China urges US to reveal more details about biolabs in Ukraine” on the China Global Television Network’s official website. . The Communist Party’s Global Times published an article on Thursday titled “U.S. Trying to Disprove ‘Rumors’ of BioLabs in Ukraine, But Can We Believe It?”
The nearly three-minute video of the Russian Defense Ministry press conference, in which the allegations are repeated, has been viewed more than 10 million times on Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese social network similar to Twitter, and received more than 90,000 likes.
After years of anti-American rhetoric from Communist Party leaders and state-controlled media, many Chinese are convinced that the US cannot be trusted and that the West is in decline trying to contain China’s rise.
The statement also gained traction with far-right groups and the media in the US.
Many believe that China is siding with Russia in the conflict, most notably in its refusal to call it a war or an invasion, in line with Moscow’s usage. He also takes Russia’s position on the root causes of the conflict, pointing to NATO’s eastward expansion and failure to recognize Russia’s “legitimate security interests”.
At the same time, it also seeks not to tie its fate to Russia, as Belarus did, seeking to present itself as just an interested third party.
China abstained from a UN vote condemning Russia and criticized economic sanctions against it. He expressed his support for the peace talks and offered his services as a mediator, despite having little experience in such a role and doubts about his neutrality.
Chinese officials also said that Washington should not be able to complain about Russia’s actions because the US invaded Iraq under false pretenses, claiming they have evidence that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, although none has ever been found. one weapon.
China also took the opportunity to reiterate its claim that the US created the virus that causes COVID-19 in a lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, which it first put forward in an apparent attempt to deflect US claims from then US President Donald Trump and others. senior US officials that the coronavirus originated in a research lab in Wuhan, China.
Two extensive studies published last month point to the city’s animal market as a likely origin.
“The international community has long been extremely concerned about the biological warfare activities of the United States,” Zhao said in response to a question about what evidence China has to support Russia’s claims. “What did the United States do at Fort Detrick on its territory?”
This is not the first time Russia has spread disinformation about US bioweapons research.
During the Cold War in the 1980s, Russian intelligence circulated the claim that the US created HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in a laboratory. More recently, Russian state media have promoted theories about dangerous research in labs in Ukraine and Georgia.
In this case, Russia attempted to counter US opposition by claiming that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that might be plotting a false flag attack.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday that Ukrainian “nationalists” had stockpiled about 80 tons of ammonia in Zolochiv near Kharkiv in preparation for a possible “provocation using poisonous substances to accuse Russia of using chemical weapons.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the accusation sinister.
“That worries me a lot because we have often been convinced that if you want to know Russia’s plans, then Russia blames others for them,” he said in his late-night address to the nation on Thursday.
“I am a reasonable person. President of a reasonable country and reasonable people. I am the father of two children,” he said. “And no chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction have been developed on my soil. The whole world knows it.”
In his testimony before a Senate panel, Burns said the US strategy in the current conflict to declassify and publicly release what is known about false narratives and possible false flag operations has paid dividends so far.
“I think we’ve had a great effect by destroying their tactics and their calculations and showing the world that this is a deliberate and unprovoked aggression built on a combination of lies and false narratives,” Burns said.
“This is one of the information wars that I think Putin is losing.”