The White House said on Wednesday that Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine or create a “false flag” operation that uses them. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki 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”. 

Psaki further noted that Russia has a “long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons” and called out the nation’s pattern of “accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating”. 

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The US State Department echoed Psaki’s concerns with spokesperson Ned Price saying “As we have said all along, Russia is inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions in Ukraine”, CNN reported. 

Price’s statement further added, “It is Russia that has active chemical and biological weapons programs and is in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention”, and also said “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”. 

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These concerns from the US come at a time when eyes are on Russia as they’ve been accused by Ukraine and the UK of committing war crimes. Notably, the US has shied away from the term, but taken cognizance of the fact that Russians have switched to targeting civilians. 

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned Russia might conduct fake or real chemical weapons attacks as a pretext to invade Ukraine, but his statement had come much before President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send in troops to “denazify” and “demilitarize” the neighbouring country.