Washington: US officials cautioned Russia on Thursday that it may be using false claims of discovering a US-backed biological weapons programme in Ukraine as a pretext to conduct its own bioweapons attack.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia had uncovered "components of biological weapons being researched in Ukrainian laboratories in immediate proximity to Russian territory."

"During the special military operation in Ukraine, it was discovered that the Kyiv regime was concealing signs of a military biological programme funded by the US Department of Defense," she added. 

According to Zakharova, Russia discovered messages directing Ukrainian bio laboratory staff to eradicate "hazardous pathogens of plague, anthrax, rabbit-fever, cholera, and other lethal diseases" from "stored reserves of highly hazardous pathogens" dating back to Feb. 24 — the day Russia invaded Ukraine.

She claimed the texts demonstrated that the US was assisting Ukraine in the creation of biological weapons.

Both the Pentagon and the White House have frequently disputed the allegations.
"We have picked up signs that the Russians could be making these baseless claims about US and Ukrainian efforts in biodefense as a way of generating their own pretext to perhaps employ these kinds of agents in an attack," a senior US defence official said Thursday, declining to give evidence.

The United States is one of 183 countries that have signed on to the Biological Weapons Convention, which "essentially forbids the creation, manufacture, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling, and deployment of biological and toxin weapons," according to a senior U.S. intelligence official.

Both officials agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.