UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on biological weapons at Russia’s request

The UN Security Council will hold an urgent meeting on Friday at the request of Russia over the allegation that the United States is funding the development of biological weapons in Ukraine, reports BBC, CNN.

Russia on Thursday accused the US of funding research into the development of biological weapons in Ukraine, which has faced an assault by tens of thousands of Russian troops since Feb 24.

Both Washington and Kyiv have denied Moscow’s claim saying the allegations were a sign that Moscow could soon use the weapons itself.

The United States has been providing Ukraine with a steady supply of weapons in the face of the Russian threat (Photo: AFP/Sergei SUPINSKY). Picture collected

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin’s government of preparing to use them on Ukrainian civilians.

At a monthly Security Council meeting on the use of chemical weapons in Syria -- a case that remains unresolved and continues to suffer from a UN-denounced lack of information from Damascus -- both Washington and London raised Ukraine.

On the other hand, , Richard Mills, the deputy US envoy to the United Nations said the Russian Federation has repeatedly spread disinformation regarding Syria's repeated use of chemical weapons.

"The recent web of lies that Russia has cast in an attempt to justify the premeditated and unjustified war it has undertaken against Ukraine, should make clear, once and for all, that Russia also cannot be trusted when it talks about chemical weapon use in Syria." he adds.

Mills' UK counterpart, James Kariuki, denounced Moscow's attack on Ukraine and said the "parallels with Russian action in Syria are clear."

"Regrettably, the comparison also extends to chemical weapons, as we see the familiar specter of Russian chemical weapons disinformation raising its head in Ukraine."

In 2018, Moscow accused the United States of secretly conducting biological weapons experiments in a laboratory in Georgia, another former Soviet republic that, like Ukraine, has ambitions to join NATO and the European Union.