"Why Ukraine? Of all the countries to conduct this kind of research in."
The Biological Threat Reduction Program has run projects in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ethiopia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Cambodia, Cameroon, Laos, Senegal...
...Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Liberia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, South Africa, Uganda, and yes, Ukraine. DoD even ran some of this programming *in Russia.*
Carlson and Greenwald are either ignorant or obtuse. (Or both! And then some.)
The whole point of the Program is to secure and improve Soviet-era labs, some of which actually did make bioweapons; and to improve security protocols in countries that need to study naturally-occurring infectious diseases. foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/10/bio…
Other countries fund this work in Ukraine as well, by the way. And this stuff isn't secret.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
We should no longer be shocked when Russia lies. Every part of this invasion has been based on lies. But for Lavrov to sit there and insist that their bombing did not put expecting mothers at risk ignores what we can plainly see with our own eyes.
Yesterday I wrote on a fast-moving conspiracy theory that seeks to rationalize Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and marry it with a tangle of QAnon paranoia. foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/02/ukr…
Let's look at how this theory came to be — and how it's still being promoted by Moscow.
As early as April 2020, the Putin regime was advancing the idea that American biological research abroad posed some kind of risk to Russia.
Maria Zakharova, press secretary for the Russian foreign minister, said Moscow was paying particular attention to American labs "abroad."
Pro-Kremlin disinformation channels, like StalkerZone (linked to Oleg Tsaryov, a separatist leader in Donetsk) had been amplifying this narrative before the comments, and much moreso afterwards.
Canada cutting off Moscow from "most favoured nation" status will mean its exports will face 35% tariffs into Canada.
Ottawa is encouraging other nations to do the same.
Canada is also creating a new fast-track line for Ukrainians who want to come to Canada. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says they've deployed biometric kits to speed up security screening, are giving work/study permits, and they've placed no limit on how many people can come.
Canada is sending more lethal aid: Up to 4,500 M72 rocket launchers and up to 7,200 hand grenades.
This is a perfectly valid and useful point, but I kind of take issue with this being journalistic malpractice.
The 'ghost of Kyiv' and Putin's mountain lair — both tales were challenged by journalists. Did some big names share it? Sure. But few media outlets did.
The Snake Island situation is really tough: We know that Russia did shell the island, so there was valid reason to believe there had been casualties. Russian channels had been sharing images of the captured sailors — but those channels can be incredibly hard to trust.
There's going to be a certain level of mistakes made in the fog of war. Media also reported Russia's claim that it had knocked out Ukraine's air defences — turns out we were wrong to take Moscow at their word. Best you can do is correct the record and move on.
"We must not allow the truth to - once again - become the victim of war," says the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial in Kyiv, today the target of a Russian bombing campaign
"We will thoroughly collect and record evidence of crimes against humanity committed by the Russian aggressors"
Putin's campaign against Ukraine has already targeted culturally, religious, and historically significant Jewish communities. Those Ukrainians say they will defend themselves and their heritage. foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/25/ukr…
President Zelensky reports there have been civilian deaths in the bombing of the Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial site.