British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has stated that the ‘barbaric’ Russian regime was carrying out what he described as ‘indulging in a tried-and-tested ruse’ as it lays the ground for the possible use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Speaking to newsmen on Thursday in an interview with Sky News which was monitored by Africa Daily News, New York, he said; ‘The stuff which you are hearing about chemical weapons is straight out of the Russian playbook,’ echoing US warnings that President Vladimir Putin could be set on a horrifying escalation.
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‘They start saying that there are chemical weapons that are being stored by their opponents or by the Americans, so that when they themselves deploy chemical weapons — as I fear they may — they have a fake story ready to go,‘ Johnson said.
‘You have seen it in Syria, you saw it even in the UK. It is a cynical, barbaric government I’m afraid.’
Britain blames Putin’s secret agents for a 2018 attack in the city of Salisbury that used the nerve agent Novichok against a former Russian double agent. A British woman died weeks later.
Both Washington and Kyiv have denied the existence of laboratories intended to produce biological weapons in Ukraine, which has faced an assault by tens of thousands of Russian troops since February 24.
‘Russia is inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions in Ukraine,’ US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday.
The West has already accused Putin’s forces of war crimes in Ukraine including the bombing of a maternity hospital in the port of Mariupol.
Meanwhile, Africa Daily News, New York can confirm that no fewer than 2.3 million refugees have now fled Ukraine ever since Russia invaded her neighbours on February 24, according to United Nations figures issued on Friday.
Africa Daily News, New York gathered that the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, has so far recorded 2,316,002 refugees on its dedicated website — 160,731 more than the previous count on Wednesday.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
