As we see in Wuhan, a virus can be devastating no matter if it escapes from a research facility, a wet market or a deliberate bioweapon. That was the primary concern of Tulsi Gabbard.
In Ukraine, matters are exacerbated by the fact that these research facilities, according to the left wing newspaper The Guardian, were U.S. funded:
Ukraine does operate biological laboratories that receive US funding. The US undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland affirmed those facts in a Senate foreign relations committee hearing this week, in which the Republican senator Marco Rubio asked directly if Ukraine had biological weapons.
Given the politically unstable situation in February 2022 and earlier, people like Greenwald and Gabbard simply point out that Putin will view this as a provocation, same as the Nuland/Graham involvement in the revolution in 2014.
Most people who are called Putin apologists are simply doing one thing: They know that Putin is a bully with 6,000 nuclear weapons, so they try to understand his thinking and possible reactions. As we see now, they were right in many ways.
> They know that Putin is a bully with 6,000 nuclear weapons, so they try to understand his thinking and possible reactions.
This would require reading what Putin wrote and commenting on it. This would require listening to his speeches in Russia. This would require close listening to Russian ideology and mythology disseminated in Russia itself and commenting on it. This would required reading Russian and Easter European politics and history - at least recent one.
It would require watching which of his statements are shifting, which are ignored the moment they are not useful, which are staying and which are supported by his actions. I dont see them ever mentioning Putins historical theories, his theories about Ukraine statehood, about Stalin.
And somehow, that concern exists only when Russia is trying to excuse invasion by bioweapons labs. Somehow, magically, this concern did not existed before, nor in other countries and stopped existing as it turned out not many people are buying it as excuse for invasion. There was no "maybe the war did not started due to that" consideration either.
This was not concern about "provocation" or concern about Putin being good-faith afraid of new covid from Ukraine. This was muddying waters, trying to build up new WMD-like narrative, because libs are at Ukrainien side.
>And somehow, that concern exists only when Russia is trying to excuse invasion by bioweapons labs. Somehow, magically, this concern did not existed before, nor in other countries and stopped existing as it turned out not many people are buying it as excuse for invasion.
Seriously, like are we supposed to believe Russia has no biological labs? Or that only Russia is allowed to, and not other countries like Ukraine?
It's totally normal and expected for biological research labs to have biological samples with which to do research.
Ukraine, like any other country, has a vested interest in the health of its population, and so Ukraine, like many other countries, performs research on diseases that ail mankind.
Additionally, "receives US funding" is a better way to put it than "US funded", which is calculated to make it seem more like the US was the _only_ country funding them. Though one would expect that one of the largest economies in the world would help its allies research and treat their diseases.
The accusations and suppositions put forward are beyond that, with thinly veiled suggestions of covert maliciousness sprinkled in.
As for Putin, he views the existence of a free Ukraine that isn't part of Russia, as a provocation, thus the invasion, so it's pretty clear that what he viewed as provocation is not necessarily an actual provocation, but rather a pretext for further violence that he already planned anyways.
"thinly veiled suggestions of covert maliciousness sprinkled in."
This could be your bad-faith reading of the stories, though. You are "reading between the lines" and seeing statements that aren't actually there, then claiming bad-faith communication on others.
Finally, saying what you think another is thinking or going to say, as in Putin's actions and motives, is very far from SUPPORTING those actions and motives.
> You are "reading between the lines" and seeing statements that aren't actually there, then claiming bad-faith communication on others
You simply claiming that does not make it so.
>Finally, saying what you think another is thinking or going to say, as in Putin's actions and motives, is very far from SUPPORTING those actions and motives.
Yes, there was no disagreement on this point. The point is that "Putin will view X as a provocation, so we shouldn't do X" is an unconvincing argument, because Putin has already claimed his own actions were provocations against him. There is no world in which Putin will not either find or invent a pretext to do what he wants, and call it a "provocation".
No matter what anyone says or does, as long as Ukraine still exists as an independent country, Putin will say, it is engaged in "provocation" which necessitates eliminating Ukraine as an independent country.
What is being described is beyond that, with thinly veiled suggestions of covert maliciousness sprinkled in.