The Kremlin has accused the US of “waging an economic war” with Russia and of helping Ukraine develop biological weapons in a new attempt to justify Putin’s war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that Russia has been hit by a “hostile bacchanalia” of sanctions that has forced Putin to “think very carefully” about his next steps. This came after the US and Europe set their sights on the country’s valuable energy exports.
Peskov also echoed claims trumpeted earlier in the day by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and Russian state media that America was funding bioweapons labs in Ukraine that hold cholera samples.
This narrative is part of the Kremlin’s attempt to retroactively justify Putin’s attack on Ukraine after the original narrative—false flag attacks and genocide in Donbass—failed when the U.S. exposed it ahead of time.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the “hostile orgy” of sanctions, which he said were a “declaration of economic war” against Russia.
Peskov’s claim that America has declared “economic war” appears to be an attempt to portray Russia as the victim, a view that has been widely circulated by state media claiming that Western aggression left Putin no choice but to invade.
Biden on Tuesday announced that the US would completely ban imports of Russian oil and gas. The UK announced a ban on oil supplies, and the EU presented a plan to refuse supplies from Moscow by 2030.
If the EU follows through with its plan, it will deal a devastating blow to Russia’s economy, sometimes referred to as a petro economy because of its high dependence on oil exports.
This was due to the exodus of Western companies from Russia, with McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks being the last to leave.
The chemical weapons line has also been circulated by state media in both Russia and China, alleging that Ukraine has an American-funded weapons of mass destruction program that again forced Putin to take action.
Zakharova, speaking in Moscow today, said Russia had exposed a link between the US and Ukraine “seeking opportunities for development.” [biological] weapons” with the financial support of Washington.
She claimed without any evidence that the employees of these laboratories were ordered to start destroying virus samples, including “cholera and other pathogens”, on February 24, conveniently tying this to the date Putin ordered the attack.
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman who has played a prominent role in spreading misinformation about the origins of Covid during the pandemic, has also echoed the claims in recent days.
The grain of truth at the center of Russia’s allegations is that the US is indeed helping Ukraine run biolabs, but they are actually biosafety labs designed to detect and track disease outbreaks that could pose a security risk.
The focus on WMD in Ukraine appears to be part of an attempt to justify the invasion of Ukraine by comparing it to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is increasingly targeting civilians (pictured is a destroyed residential building in Kharkiv), has met with almost complete international condemnation.
Russian forces also suffered higher-than-expected casualties after an early attempt at a quick victory suffered an embarrassing defeat (pictured wounded Ukrainians).
As a pretext for the invasion, the Bush White House said that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction and could use them to attack minority groups, as he did against the Kurds in Halabja in 1988. No WMD was found.
Moscow has retroactively stepped up efforts to justify the war amid near-total international condemnation, tougher-than-expected Western sanctions, and fighting that has turned out to be much bloodier than the Kremlin expected.
The UN ballot condemning last week’s invasion received a record 143 votes against with 35 abstentions, including countries such as China, Venezuela and Cuba, which usually vote for Russia.
In addition to Russia itself, only four countries voted against: Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria.
This was followed by Western sanctions that hit the Russian economy deeper and harder than experts predicted, as its hugely valuable energy sector was hit this week.
America has announced a total ban on imports of Russian oil and gas, the UK has cut off oil supplies, and the EU has announced a plan to phase out imports by 2030. pass the.
Currently, Russia is the country with the most sanctions in the world, ahead of even countries such as the “hermit kingdom” of North Korea and America’s nemesis Iran.
Meanwhile, Western companies are trying to exit the Russian economy, and iconic brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Ikea are closing.
The ruble is now worth less than the US cent, and the Russian stock market is closed for a week due to suspicions that it may not open soon.
On the battlefield, things also turned against Russia, something the Kremlin did not seem to have foreseen.
Vladimir Putin has faced criticism at home over the war, with politicians said to have privately called the invasion “cluster ***”.
Early attacks using light formations of infantry and tanks – apparently in the hope that the Ukrainian military would simply surrender – were canceled out with heavy Russian casualties, forcing Putin to resort to siege tactics, bombing cities to subdue them.
The Kiev command says that the Russian offensive is now stalled and almost completely stopped, since many of the goals set at the initial stage were not achieved.
Ukraine estimates Russia’s losses at 12,000. It’s impossible to verify, but the total will almost certainly be higher than Putin expected.
Even if Russia’s much larger army can outnumber the Ukrainian army alone, it faces the daunting task of attempting to occupy a country whose population has demonstrated a bloodthirsty willingness to resist.
This will force the people of Moscow to fight a deep-seated insurgency, draining Russia’s economic resources at a time when sanctions are starting to bite hard.
In private conversations, politicians and powerful businessmen in Russia are said to describe the invasion as a “cluster fuck-up” that Putin never counted on.
Anti-war protests have also erupted, leading some to predict that Putin’s “miscalculation” in Ukraine could lead to the downfall of his regime.