Staff at Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters – Wednesday, the United States dismissed renewed Russian claims that Washington operated biowarfare facilities in Ukraine. The claim was called “laughable” by the United States and suggests Moscow is preparing for the use of a biological or chemical weapon.

Russia repeated the accusation that it has been making for several years, namely that the United States works with Ukrainian labs to create biological weapons. In the days leading up to Moscow’s military incursion into Ukraine, such assertions increased and were repeated Wednesday night by Maria Zakharova (foreign ministry spokesperson).

“The Russian charges are absurd. They are laughable. It’s all nonsense. It is classic Russian propaganda,” John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesperson (NYSE:), said Wednesday.

Ned Price, spokesman for the State Department, stated that Russia is “inventing false pretexts to justify its horrific actions in Ukraine” in a statement released Wednesday.

Jen Psaki of the White House, who cited Russia’s false claims, wrote in Twitter (NYSE.:) “It’s Russia which has a long, well-documented history of using chemical weapons including in attempted assassinations of Putin’s political opponents like Alexey Navalny.”

To Wednesday’s U.S. claims, the Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond. Russia denied that an attack was made on Navalny.

Zakharova stated Wednesday that Russia has documents that show the Ukrainian health minister had directed the destruction of anthrax, plague and other pathogens prior to February 24, the date Russian troops entered Ukraine.

Zakharova claimed that the documents found by Russian troops in Ukraine revealed “an emergency effort to erase evidence regarding military biological programmes,” which were financed by Pentagon. The documents were not further described by her.

Reuters could not confirm the information independently.

Ukrainian President spokesperson stated that Ukraine strongly denied any such allegations.

Ukraine, like many countries around the world has its own public health laboratory that studies how to reduce human and animal diseases. The United States, European Union, and the World Health Organization have supported its laboratories.

Pentagon’s Biological Threat Reduce Program is working closely with the Ukrainian government in order to secure pathogens and toxins kept at the labs. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv released a statement saying that it was involved to prevent “dangerous pathogens” from falling into the wrong hands amid similar biowarfare allegations in 2020.

According to a former U.S. official who was familiar with Washington’s cooperation, the United States assisted in the conversion of several Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories into health facilities.