Kremlin: Biden diverting attention from biological arms

MOSCOW－The Kremlin accused US President Joe Biden on Friday of seeking to divert attention from his country's chemical and biological weapons program after he said Russia could use such weapons in Ukraine.

"We see this as an attempt to divert attention to some kind of ephemeral, allegedly existing threat against the backdrop of a scandal that is flaring up in the world involving chemical and biological weapons programs that the United States has been carrying out in various countries, including Ukraine," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"There are many people in the world who are worried about what the Americans were doing, what we still don't know and what could have happened because of all this research and what could potentially happen in the future."

The Russian Defense Ministry accused Biden's son Hunter last week of funding biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine through his investment fund Rosemont Seneca.

The fund has resources of at least $2.4 billion, said Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces.

The US Agency for International Development, the George Soros Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were also involved in the funding and development of these programs, he added.

"The incoming documents have allowed us to trace patterns of interaction between US government agencies and Ukrainian biological facilities," he said.

Kirillov also said the Defense Ministry has official documentation proving that 30 Ukrainian laboratories were involved in military biological activities.

About 16,000 biological samples have been exported to the US and its allies from Ukraine, Kirillov said.

For instance, 4,000 blood samples were taken from servicemen in Lviv, Kharkiv, Odessa and Kyiv to study the prevalence of antibodies to hantavirus.

"This large-scale screening of the natural immunity of the populations was probably carried out to select the most dangerous biological agents for populations in certain regions," he explained.

He added that dangerous pathogens and their transporters were also exported from Ukraine.

The US government has not responded to the claim.

"Of course we will demand explanations," Peskov said on Friday.

Last Monday, Biden said it was "clear" that Russia was considering using chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine and warned of a "severe" Western response if it chose to do so.

He also denied that the US was holding chemical and biological weapons in Europe.

"Simply not true. I guarantee you," he told a gathering of US business leaders in Washington.

Agencies - Xinhua