Ukraine has biological research facilities: US State Dep
After Russia revealed the existence of Biolabs in Ukraine, the United States comes forward and voices concern over Moscow obtaining "any information."
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US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland
Ukraine has biological research facilities, and the United States is concerned that they could come under the control of the Russian forces, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said Tuesday as the Russian forces make further advances into Ukraine ahead of their ceasefire.
"Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of," Nuland said during a Senate hearing.
According to the Under Secretary, Washington is working with Kiev on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces "should they approach".
Data on biological laboratories found in Ukraine does not help the case of the US against claims regarding its compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday.
On Sunday Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov announced that Russia would provide an analysis of documents on a program for the creation of biological weapons components in Ukraine.
Washington pulling strings of ambassadors
The US has instructed its ambassadors to try and influence their host countries to impose sanctions on Russia, Nuland revealed, following through on the western campaign spearheaded by Washington to impose sanctions on Russia.
"Not only are we pressing every country that we speak to at the President and Secretary's level and all the levels in the department, every single one of our ambassadors has instructions to work with their host nations to try to get them to match US and EU and allied sanctions to the extent that they can and are willing to condemn Russia," Nuland said.
Several countries have revealed Washington's calls on sanctioning or condemning Russia, stressing that they want to abide by neutrality, such as China and Pakistan.
The United States is also trying to influence a number of big countries that have so far abstained from implementing sanctions and other measures to "get on the right side of history," Nuland claimed.
Crypto not exempt
When asked if the Biden administration was dealing with Russia using the opportunity to use cryptocurrency, Nuland said "we are."
We are consulting with our European allies and partners on how we might do more together," she added.
The western bid of boycotting and sanctioning Russia came with several additions today, such as McDonald's, L'Oreal, and Starbucks.
McDonald's suspended the work of all its restaurants in Russia in light of Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine.
French perfume and cosmetics company L'Oreal decided to join the Western trend of suspending its work in Russia, as it will be temporarily closing its stores and e-commerce sites in Rusisa, as well as investments in the country.
Earlier today, in a bid to paralyze the Russian economy, US President Joe Biden went on and banned imports of Russian oil to the United States.
"When the history of this war is written, Putin's war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger," he vowed, despite the Western economy practically crashing without Russian supplies.
