Dutton issues chilling Russia warning on biological weapons

Defence Minister Peter Dutton says fears the Kremlin could use biological weapons in Ukraine can’t be dismissed due to the ‘brutality’ of the Putin regime.

Peter Dutton during Question Time in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Defence Minister Peter Dutton says fears the Kremlin could use biological weapons in Ukraine can’t be dismissed due to the “brutality” of the Putin regime, amid US warnings Russia could be preparing “false pretexts” for such an attack.

The Russian Defence Ministry said a US defence agency funded research into bat coronaviruses in Ukraine, which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described as “not peaceful experiments”. But the White House rejected the claim, saying it could mark efforts by the Russians to lay the groundwork for using biological or chemical weapons in the conflict.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said similar allegations about work on a chemical weapons program in Ukraine “have been debunked”, adding the claim was “an example of the types of false pretexts we have been warning the Russians would invent”.

The UN Security Council was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting in New York on the alleged manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine at the request of Moscow, whose ally the Assad government has used chemical weapons in Syria.

With Russian forces bogged down in Ukraine in the face of fierce local resistance, Moscow has increasingly turned to indiscriminate shelling of civilians, and faces war crime allegations for the bombardment of hospitals and the use of banned cluster bombs.

Mr Dutton warned the prospect Russia could use biological weapons was a serious one.

“These are credible reports and they will be based on an intelligence window and, given the brutality of the Russian forces, they are truly capable of it,” he told Seven’s Sunrise program. “I do not think we should dismiss it and given what we have seen with the bombing of residential areas and hospitals – and women and children being slaughtered – you would not put anything past the Russian regime.”

The warning came as Immigration Minister Alex Hawke revealed more than 3000 Ukrain­ians had been granted approval to stay in Australia across a range of visa categories. He said the government would continue to process visa applications from Ukrai­n­ians, while those with a visas due to expire by June 30 would be given six-month extensions.

A senior NATO official said there were serious concerns that Russia was setting the stage to use chemical weapons.

On Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed Washington had been supporting research that could allow the spread of diseases through wild birds migrating between Russia and Ukraine, adding that “biolaboratories set up and funded in Ukraine have been experimenting with bat coronavirus samples”.

“As to them using these weapons, I don’t have information like that, but these were not peaceful experiments,” Mr Lavrov said.

On the ground in Ukraine, Russian forces moved to the northeastern edge of the capital, Kyiv, raising fears the city could soon be encircled.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, said the city “has been transformed into a fortress – every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified.”

Russian forces were also encircling at least four other big cities, including the port of Mariupol, the country’s second-biggest city Kharkiv, and Sumy and Chernihiv in the north.

Mariupol came under fresh attack, the day after the bombing of a children’s hospital killed three people, including a young girl.

Aid agencies said Mariupol was facing an “apocalyptic” situation, having had no water, power or heat for more than a week.