The US State Department plans to launch a program to counter the "Russian harmful influence".

According to the agency's grant, it will allegedly be aimed at "increasing the potential of foreign partners to identify and respond to actions by Russia that undermine the norms and regimes of non-proliferation" of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Up to $ 3.5 million will be spent on the program, its implementation will begin in October 2021, according to the document of the State Department, the text of which was read by RT.

The grant notes that several cases of Russia’s use of weapons of mass destruction are allegedly known in “assassination attempts on its opponents,” according to the State Department.

These authors include attempts to kill opposition politicians in the country, dissidents, defectors abroad, and even foreign citizens, with whose actions the Russian authorities do not agree.

So, they cite as an example the 2018 incident in the British city of Salisbury with a former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Then London announced that they were allegedly poisoned by the Novichok military nerve agent and blamed the Russian special services for the incident.

Moreover, no evidence of this has yet been presented.

Also in the State Department they say that the poison from the "Novichok" group was allegedly used during another incident.

“The Skripal incident is not the only one of its kind.

In 2020, according to chemical analyzes carried out by Germany, France and Sweden and confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a substance from the Novichok group was also used in the assassination attempt on Alexei Navalny.

Elimination of such threats is an important priority for international security, "the document says.

Recall that Navalny felt bad on August 20 on an airplane flying from Tomsk to Moscow.

He was urgently hospitalized in Omsk, and then transported to Germany at the request of his relatives.

After the tests were carried out, the OPCW experts said that they allegedly found a poisonous substance in the blogger's urine and blood samples, similar in characteristics to Novichok, but not on the lists of prohibited chemicals.

At the same time, the official report of the OPCW turned out to be closed, and information on the names, chemical composition and characteristics of substances was removed from it.

The document of the US State Department also states that Russia allegedly seeks to "undermine" the WMD nonproliferation regimes, to interfere with the functioning of foreign scientific laboratories in Eastern Europe, using disinformation and cyber attacks.

“During the pandemic, Russian proactive efforts have become more aggressive and now include a range of tactics such as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns aimed at directly inciting people to take action against public health measures,” the agency added.

Based on this, the State Department intends to take measures to expand the capacity of countries in detecting and responding "to active actions of Russia, including the use of hardly detectable substances of mass destruction in assassination attempts," as well as to raise awareness of the international community about these threats.

In addition, it is expected to provide foreign partners with the opportunity to identify and respond to "sets of active actions aimed at undermining the infrastructure in the field of health care and cooperation in the field of nonproliferation."

In particular, it is planned to conduct trainings for law enforcement agencies, scientists and rapid response services in partner countries, the document says.

They will be trained to identify assassination attempts using weapons of mass destruction and take response measures.

It also emphasizes that the training will help ensure a reliable response to future attacks

.

 It is supposed to connect to them the countries of Europe, in particular Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus.

It should be noted that at the beginning of October, the United States already conducted a virtual training on responding to incidents with weapons of mass destruction, mentioning Navalny.

The grant will also support the training of forensic scientists from OPCW-certified laboratories as part of Washington-led efforts.

strengthen cyber defense of government laboratories.

In addition, the project will provide a global audience with "timely and accurate scientific information" about the threats of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from

examples of "Russian disinformation" in this area.


No proof again

Moscow has repeatedly drawn attention to the unfounded accusations of the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Thus, the Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the characteristics of the substances were not just taken from the OPCW report on the Navalny case.

“The absence of this information indicates that allegations of the allegedly“ deliberate poisoning ”of the blogger remain unsupported by any evidence base and conclusions,” the ministry commented.

According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, against the background of the non-transparent cooperation of the OPCW with Germany, the group of the Euro-Atlantic "community" of countries is trying to ascribe to Russia a gross violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Moreover, the West categorically refuses to clarify the circumstances of the incident together with Moscow.

“When Russian law enforcement agencies again and again turn to German partners for assistance, the German side is meaningfully silent and continues to bend its line, saying:“ You poisoned Navalny, but we will not give you anything and will not talk, ”Zakharova explained.

  • Maria Zakharova

  • RIA News

  • © Press Service of the Russian Foreign Ministry

A similar reaction to RF requests followed after the incident with the Skripals - Moscow was not provided with any documents.

However, this did not prevent the West from imposing sanctions for the alleged "development and use of chemical weapons."

On October 12, the Council of Europe decided to extend these restrictions against Russia for another year.

Already on October 15, the EU added sanctions for the incident with Navalny to the list of anti-Russian restrictions.

The Kremlin called the EU decision a deliberate unfriendly step.

“Unfortunately for us, this is a deliberately unfriendly step towards Russia.

By this decision, the EU Council has damaged relations with our country.

Moscow will undoubtedly analyze the situation and will act in accordance with its own interests, ”said Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the Russian President.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in turn, stressed that this policy of the West is anti-Russian.

“Unfortunately, we have to admit that recently Washington and a number of EU capitals have been redoubling their efforts to curb Russia's development, trying to punish us for an independent foreign policy, for consistently upholding national interests,” the minister said.

"Global bullying" by the West

The topic of Russia's alleged use of weapons of mass destruction has turned into yet another hook of the West for imposing restrictions, but this approach does not stand up to criticism, says Alexander Domrin, professor at the Higher School of Economics.

“There is no court decision on the Skripals.

It is unclear where they are; the staff of the Russian embassy has no access to them.

And there are no rulings on the Navalny case.

But if it were not for this lead, they would have come up with another, ”the political scientist said in an interview with RT.

  • Secret services outside the Skripals' house in Salisbury

  • Reuters

  • © Peter Nicholls

In his opinion, the American program of "counteraction" to Russia is aimed only at feeding Russophobic sentiments and promoting pro-American policies.

The expert also recalled that in some countries in the post-Soviet space, where it is planned to implement the project of the State Department, there are laboratories capable of developing weapons of mass destruction.

With the help of the new program, the United States can prepare "supporters" who will willingly confirm any position of Washington, says Sergei Sudakov, a corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences.

“A number of countries, including Georgia and Ukraine, have transferred part of their sovereignty to America.

They will confirm everything that is needed, so the State Department will always refer to them, ”the expert said.

The United States regularly uses the "highley like" formula, which can be used to accuse any state of anything, Sudakov noted.

Thus, the West is actually destroying classical international law.

“Now there is no presumption of innocence, there is only a presumption of guilt.

There is no real court with lawyers and prosecutors.

Any decision is made on faith.

In this system, Russia has become a rogue state, to blame for all the upheavals in the world.

We are witnessing global bullying, which is inherently a crime, ”the political scientist concluded.