During her testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations committee about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland answers a question from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) about whether or not Ukraine has chemical or biological weapons. She replies, "Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned...Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of." She then refutes allegations from Russia that Ukrainians are plotting to use biological weapons, and says that if such an attack happens in Ukraine, "there is no doubt in my mind" it would be caused by Russian forces.
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And yes I also watched the video and it's accurate.
> Why would you mention the labs in connection to a question specifically about bio weapons?
Which situation do you think looks worse, admitting to having biological research facilities (unrelated to weaponry), or having Russians invade, take over one of said research facilities, and run with whatever story they want to justify their war?
is it really that big of a jump to connect gain of function research and bioweaponry? to be fair the world genuinely believes covid spontaneously manifested directly next to a US funded covid research site, so perhaps the gap is really that wide.
edit: clarifying that russia can still use the truth as a propaganda weapon via selective omission (in this case focusing on ukraine)
> is it really that big of a jump to connect gain of function research and bioweaponry?
Have you seen any evidence for the bio-weaponry claim?
> to be fair the world genuinely believes COVID spontaneously manifested directly next to a US funded COVID research site, so perhaps the gap is really that wide.
You would need more evidence than proximity to prove that.
my initial claim is a conceptual link, there is absolutely nothing stopping a virus research facility from being steered in any particular direction by its funding sources. my second claim is a deduction - if a virus were to evolve anywhere on earth, what are the odds that it were to have evolved directly next to a facility specifically designed to engineer that virus? my personal answer to that question leads me not to require evidence here, terrible method of argument but it is what I believe
Rubio: “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?”
Nuland: “Ukraine has biological research facilities...”
https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-committee/senator-rubio-q...
Why would you mention the labs in connection to a question specifically about bio weapons?