While the US has so far not presented any evidence that Russia plans to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, the White House — most notably, press secretary Jen Psaki — has warned that the weapons could be used in the conflict.
Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine or manufacture a “false flag” operation that uses them, Psaki said Wednesday. The press secretary, slamming what she called false claims from Russia that the US is developing chemical weapons in Ukraine, tweeted, “Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them. It’s a clear pattern.”
She also noted Russia’s “long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons” as well as its pattern of “accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating.”
The US government has previously found that the Russian government used chemical weapons in both the 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and in 2018 against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England. Both determinations by the US led to sanctions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, which requires the President to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions if a country is found to have used chemical weapons.
When asked about her tweets at Thursday’s press briefing, Psaki declined to speculate on hypotheticals regarding the US response if Russia were to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“Well, they have a large biological and chemical weapons program. So it’s a pattern, but they also have the capacity. While I’m not going to get into specific intelligence, we look at all of those factors,” Psaki told…
Source : cnn
