The US State Department echoed the White House in condemning what they called the Kremlin’s “outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine.”
“As we have said all along, Russia is inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions in Ukraine,” spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement Wednesday.
“It is Russia that has active chemical and biological weapons programs and is in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention,” he said, adding, “Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very crimes that Russia itself is perpetrating.”
“These tactics are an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attacks on Ukraine. We fully expect Russia to continue to double down on these sorts of claims with further unfounded allegations,” Price said.
Like White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Price also noted that they have “also seen [Chinese] officials echo these conspiracy theories.”