UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia announced on Thursday that it will not request that the UN Security Council vote on Friday on its draft resolution on humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which has been criticized for not mentioning Moscow's invasion of its neighbouring country.
Instead, it will use the Council's scheduled meeting to reiterate its allegations that the United States has biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine, a claim that Washington says is misinformation and part of a possible “false flag operation” by Moscow.
Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, made the announcement during a council meeting on Thursday that was convened by six Western nations, including the United States, to get an update on the conflict, which is in its third week.
Nebenzia said that Russia will not withdraw the resolution, but decided not to seek a vote at this time because of what it described as “unprecedented pressure” from Western nations, particularly the United States and Albania, on UN member countries to oppose the measure.
Nebenzia said that Russia plans to proceed with Friday's meeting to restate its allegations that there are US military biological laboratories in Ukraine. Russian diplomats have not presented evidence to support their claims, which have been repeatedly rejected by Washington and Kiev.
The US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, responded to Nebenzia's announcement by noting that “her absurd humanitarian resolution... was destined to fail.”
“We know that if Russia really cared about humanitarian crises, such as the one it created, it could simply cease its attacks on the people of Ukraine,” he said. “Instead, they want to convene another meeting of the Security Council to use this council as a channel to broadcast their misinformation and promote their propaganda.”
At last Friday's council meeting on Russia's initial allegations of US “biological activities”, Thomas-Greenfield accused Moscow of using the council to “lie and spread misinformation” as part of a possible false flag operation by the Kremlin to use chemical or biological agents in Ukraine.
He said that Russia was developing a scenario that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described to the council last month: That Russian President Vladimir Putin would “make allegations about chemical or biological weapons to justify his own violent attacks on the Ukrainian people.”
Nebenzia stated last week that the Russian Ministry of Defense has documents alleging that Ukraine has at least 30 biological laboratories conducting “very dangerous biological experiments” on pathogens, and that “the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency carries out, funds and monitors” these efforts.
He said Thursday that he will present the documents to the council at Friday's meeting.
Ukraine does have a network of biological laboratories that have received funding and research support from the United States. But they are owned and operated by Kiev, and are part of an initiative called the Biological Threat Reduction Program, which aims to reduce the possibility of lethal outbreaks, whether natural or man-made. These American efforts date back to the 1990s to dismantle the weapons of mass destruction program of the former Soviet Union.