Imagine, if you can, the threat of a hostile power setting up bioweapons labs on our border with, say, Mexico. Would you feel worried, threatened, outraged? I would and I'd want to see them gone. That in mind, the US is or was apparently doing just that, running biolabs in the Ukraine, at least 11 of them.
They go under the aegis of the US Department of Defense's Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) and the US Embassy in Ukraine makes no bones about it. They're there to "consolidate and secure," but if benign why, on February 26, did the embassy purge documents from its website detailing the labs?
The US Embassy in #Ukraine has just deleted from its website all documents about 11 Pentagon-funded biolaboratories in Ukraine. I have published all these documents (now deleted by the Embassy) here https://t.co/Odc0ermmZe and in the thread below pic.twitter.com/benFmDwguI
— Dilyana Gaytandzhieva (@dgaytandzhieva) February 26, 2022
Regardless, and despite the US Embassy's healthcare euphemisms, see Planned Parenthood, would any of us for a split second expect our government to put up with this at the very least potential threat on our borders. I don't think so. Why, then, should we expect Russia to.
That in mind, it's no small thing for Putin to roll into Ukraine with all the risk that entails. So why invade? Of course he could be an unhinged, warmongering tyrant, a new Hitler if you like.
On the other hand, perhaps he recognized a serious existential threat and moved to neutralize it, biolabs and all. Feel free to disagree, but I'm not so sure Warmongering Tyrant Hitler (WTH) describes Putin.
Your call,
LSP
