Russia just took this war to the next level when they bombed a maternity and children’s hospital in Ukraine.
It’s a new low, and still the United States is scared to weigh in on this war.
The BBC gathered the details:
President Volodymyr Zelensky said people were trapped under the wreckage, and called the attack a war crime.
He also posted footage apparently from inside the hospital, which appeared badly damaged.
A regional official told Ukrainian media that at least 17 people were injured, including staff and patients.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional administration which includes the port city of Mariupol, said no deaths had been confirmed, and there were no confirmed injuries amongst children. He said the attack happened during an agreed ceasefire with the Russian side, according to Interfax Ukraine.
The Mariupol city council said the strike had caused “colossal damage”, and published footage showing burned out buildings, destroyed cars and a huge crater outside the hospital. The BBC has verified the location of the videos.
Meanwhile, the White House warns that chemical warfare might be next.
Russia accused Ukraine of testing biological weapons alongside the US. Of course, US officials deny such activities.
Fox News adds:
The White House on Wednesday warned that Russia could use “chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine” or could create a “false flag operation” using them, after the Kremlin accused the U.S. of being involved in biological weapons research at Ukrainian labs.
The director of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ information and press department, Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, said that in the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia confirmed that Ukrainian leadership was quickly trying to clean up any trace of “military and biological programs” that Ukraine was conducting with financial backing from the United States.
This echoed previous accusations that the Kremlin has made about Ukraine allegedly destroying samples of various pathogens. A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied the allegations, according to Reuters, and a senior U.S. defense official called the claims “laughable” and said they are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration “took note of Russia’s false claims about alleged U.S. biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine,” and added that officials have also seen “Chinese officials echo these conspiracy theories.”
“To be clear: this is preposterous,” Psaki said, adding that it is “exactly the kind of disinformation operation we’ve seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years in Ukraine and in other countries around the world, which have been debunked conclusively, and an example of the types of false pretexts we have been warning the Russians would invent.”
Psaki said the U.S. is “in full compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention and does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere.”
“It’s Russia that has a long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons, including in attempted assassinations and poisoning of Putin’s political enemies like Alexey Navalny,” Psaki said. “And it’s Russia that continues to support the Assad regime in Syria, which has repeatedly used chemical weapons. It’s Russia that has long maintained a biological weapons program in violation of international law.”
Psaki also pointed to Russia’s “track record of accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating.”
Final Analysis?
I’ve got to say, I’ve been all over the place with my assessments of this war between Russia and Ukraine. Sure, it was a good tactical move for a President looking to leave behind a legacy of reuniting Mother Russia, IF it had been executed properly.
Putin underestimated his enemy. He went in with less than half the troops he really needed. Then, Zelensky shocked the world with his “stand in the streets and fight” spirit. Which, quite frankly, won over my respect. Of course, Biden is obligated to sit on Putin’s side. He canceled the Keystone pipeline and started buying billions of barrels of Russian oil. But there’s a potential kink in the hose.
Fox elaborates:
This is not the first time that Russia has accused the U.S. of backing biological weapons labs near its borders. In 2018, the Kremlin alleged that the U.S. was funding a secret biological weapons lab in the country of Georgia, which they claimed was one of several labs the U.S. had near the borders of Russia and China.
However, now China is backing Russian claims of biological weapons labs.
“According to data released by the US, it has 26 bio-labs and other related facilities in Ukraine, over which the US Department of Defense has absolute control,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said during a news conference Tuesday. “All dangerous pathogens in Ukraine must be stored in these labs and all research activities are led by the US side. Without US approval, no information shall be released to the public.”
Zhao was echoing claims from his Russian counterpart Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, who said Kremlin troops found evidence that Ukrainians are covering up evidence of “military biological programs” in fear that the invading army will learn more. U.S. officials have said the idea is “absurd” and that Russia could be using it as cover ahead of a possible chemical or biological attack on Ukraine.
Of course, China wants to distract the US from the notion that the WuFlu came from Wuhan. So they have good reason to buddy up with Russia.
So, what is the actual truth?
Let’s get real. When it comes to politics, we may never really know. There is only one truth I can back 100%. And that’s the fact that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election fair and square after spending his campaign in a basement sniffing glue and looking at old issues of the teen periodical ‘Bop Magazine.’
