On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) echoed unsubstantiated Kremlin state propaganda about Ukraine secretly developing biological weapons — which experts believe the Russian government is fabricating as a pretext to use weapons of mass destruction themselves.
"Igor Konashenkov, the chief spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, said it was 'obvious that in the wake of the special military operation, the Pentagon started having serious concerns about secret biological experiments uncovered on the Ukrainian territory,'" reported Mariana Alfaro and Adela Suliman. "Dmitry Chumakov, a Russian deputy United Nations ambassador, urged Western media on Wednesday to cover 'the news about secret biological laboratories in Ukraine,' the Associated Press reported. Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also told reporters Wednesday that Russia had concluded that 'in Ukrainian laboratories close to our borders, components of biological weapons were being developed.'"
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According to the report, as all of these claims were being made, "Rep. Thomas Massie, who recently voted against a House resolution supporting Ukraine, amplified Russia’s claims Wednesday on Twitter, saying he had not taken 'the concern over Ukrainian biological labs seriously … until now.'"
Massie has previously stirred controversy for voting against making lynching a federal hate crime, and for claiming he "didn't see any violence" at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
U.S. officials have confirmed there is no evidence to support the claim Ukraine has biological weapons, and that their laboratories are purely for diagnostics and defense purposes. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, meanwhile, has warned that Russia has a pattern of accusing groups they are fighting of using weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to using them themselves, and this propaganda blitz could portend the use of a chemical weapons strike by Russia.