“Direct confrontation between Nato and Russia is World War III – something we must strive to prevent,“ Mr Biden added.
However, he vowed that Russia would pay a „severe price“ if it used chemical weapons in Ukraine.
It comes as Kyiv warned that Belarus could join Russia‘s invasion as early as this evening after Russian fighter jets fired at Belarus from Ukrainian air space in an apparent ‘false flag’ attack to involve Minsk in the conflict.
Moscow did not immediately comment on a statement by Ukraine’s border service that several Belarusian border villages had been bombed by Russian warplanes to create a reason for Belarus to join Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Nach Darstellung der Ukraine will Russland mit Luftangriffen auf belarussische Dörfer einen Kriegseintritt des Nachbarlandes provozieren. Der ukrainische Grenzschutz habe am Nachmittag den Start russischer Kampfflugzeuge von einem Fliegerhorst in Belarus registriert, teilte die ukrainische Luftwaffe heute mit. Die Maschinen seien in den ukrainischen Luftraum eingedrungen und hätten dann das Feuer auf das Dorf Kopani in Belarus eröff
Q: Is there any concern that Russia‘s actually doing this because they‘re planning some sort of chem-biological attack?
MR. KIRBY: Yes, Court. I mean, again, not being perfectly inside the minds of the Russians. We have seen one of their playbooks is to accuse the other that which you are doing or what you plan to do. And to create a narrative that of victimhood and blaming somebody else for something that you‘re in fact going to do. I have no evidence of that. I‘m not suggesting that that‘s in the offing right now.
I have no intelligence and indicators that, that type of weaponry is in Ukraine and being planned to be used. So, I want to be clear, but it is a piece of the Russian playbook to blame others for that which you are about to do or you are considering doing. They‘ve done that plenty of times before.
Die Vereinten Nationen haben bekräftigt, nichts über in der Ukraine produzierte Biowaffen zu wissen. „Mir sind Medienberichte über Vorwürfe von Biowaffenprogrammen bekannt. Der UNO sind keine Biowaffenprogramme bekannt“, sagte Izumi Nakamitsu, die Leiterin des UNO-Büros für Abrüstungsfragen, heute bei einer Dringlichkeitssitzung des UNO-Sicherheitsrates in New York.
Russia hastily called a Friday morning U.N. Security Council meeting late on Thursday evening to discuss in open debate what it called „the military biological activities of the US on the territory of Ukraine“ — leading the Biden administration to immediately denounce it as a „false flag effort.“
In a comment sent to CBS News, Olivia Dalton, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said, „We‘re not going to let Russia gaslight the world or use the UN Security Council as a venue for promoting their disinformation.“