White House warns of possible Russian 'false flag' attack in Ukraine involving chemical or biological weapons

 White House press secretary Jen Psaki warned of the possibility of a "false flag" attack by the Russians involving chemical or biological weapons after citing the proliferation of misinformation online.

Psaki released a statement Wednesday saying that the disinformation campaign might be preparing the way for a fake attack orchestrated to blame Ukrainians.

"We took note of Russia’s false claims about alleged U.S. biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine. We’ve also seen Chinese officials echo these conspiracy theories," said Psaki in the statement.

"This is preposterous," she added. "It’s the kind of disinformation operation we’ve seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years in Ukraine and in other countries, which have been debunked, and an example of the types of false pretexts we have been warning the Russians would invent."

She went on to say that the U.S. does not develop or possess biological or chemical weapons anywhere, and noted that there was a long record of Russia using such weapons to assassinate political opponents.

"This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine," Psaki continued.

"Now that Russia has made these false claims," she concluded, "we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them. It’s a clear pattern."

Russian officials claimed on Wednesday that their military forces had found evidence of a military biological program in Ukraine involving plague and anthrax. Ukraine has denied the allegations.

The warning from the White House was similar to one the administration made prior to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. State Dept. spokesperson Ned Price said in early February that it was likely that Russia would orchestrate a false attack to blame with Ukrainians in order to justify an invasion.

Later in February, Russia accused Ukrainian forces of firing back at them after Russian forces shelled a kindergarten school. They invaded soon after.

Here's more about Russia's invasion of Ukraine:

Russian forces strike children's hospital in Ukrainewww.youtube.com