The White House has denounced "Russia's false claims" the U.S. is producing bioweapons in Ukraine, but press secretary Jen Psaki stopped short of revealing how the Biden administration might respond if Russia uses bioweapons in its invasion of Ukraine.
"I'm not going to get into red lines from here," Psaki told reporters at Thursday's press briefing. "What we're saying right now is they have the capacity and the capabilities.
"I'm also not going to get into intelligence, but the president's intention of sending U.S. military to fight in Ukraine against Russia has not changed."
The Biden administration has been very careful not to cross Vladimir Putin's red line on interfering with his "special military operation" in Ukraine. That included tossing a NATO hot potato on supplying Poland with jets that would backfill its air defense force so it could give MiGs to the Ukraine armed forces to defend its own skies against Russian air forces.
The moves are the White House attempt "to prevent a World War III," Psaki told reporters.
The White House had supported giving jets to Poland, but declined Poland's offer to take its MiGs to host them in Germany, calling it too "risky" against Putin's red line of not interfering on his operations.
Still, Psaki vowed any "escalatory" action by Russian President Vladimir Putin against a NATO ally would be met with a U.S. response, but did not go into details if bioweapons were used on Ukrainians.
"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," Psaki said "It's a clear pattern.
"The main issue that prompted my Twitter thread [Wednesday] was that Russia has a history also of inventing outright lies like this, which is the suggestion that the United States has a chemical and biological weapons program, or that Ukraine does that they're operating."
Psaki noted Russia is the country with bioweapons, so its escalatory claims are a deflection of their own culpability.
"Russia is the country that has a chemical and biological weapons program, so the objective was to make clear the inaccuracy of the information, the misinformation they're trying to put out and make clear to the world, that they not only have the capacity, they have a history of using chemical and biological weapons, and that in this moment, we should have our eyes open for that possibility," Psaki added.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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