The Russian military recently claimed it has found 30 laboratories in Ukraine that were allegedly involved in the production of biological weapons.
A WION report said that according to Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Russian Armed Forces' radiation, chemical, and biological defense, "the Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly drawn attention to the military biological program" being imposed by the Pentagon in post-Soviet nations, including on the territory of Ukraine where a network of over 30 biological labs has been created, which can be split into research and sanitary-epidemiological ones, explained Kirillov.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency or DTRA of Pentagon is the project's customer, and a corporation associated with the military department, notably Black and Veatch, is involved in the implementation of the project, explained the military official.
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3 Main Areas of the Labs
Kirillov noted that the work is being carried out in three main areas. According to the Pentagon, the first is the monitoring of the biological state in the proposed site for the deployment of military contingents from NATO member states.
The second area is the collection of hazardous microbe strains and their transfer to the United States. Kirillov said, the third direction is a study into prospective biological weapons agents that are strange to a given area, "have natural foci" and may be transferred to humans.
Kirillov cited these examples: Since 2021, the Pentagon has been executing the project entitled Diagnostics, Surveillance, and Prevention of Zoonotic Diseases in the Armed Forces of Ukraine with $11.8 million for total funding; from 2020 to 2021, the German Defense Ministry carried out research of pathogens of the "Congo Crimean hemorrhagic disease" in Ukraine; fever, meningitis, leptospirosis, and hantaviruses are part of the Ukrainian-German effort to guarantee biological security at the outside borders of the European Union.
According to a similar Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux report, this may be part of the narrative telling that the effort aims to search for treatment for COVID-19. Nevertheless, thousands of serum samples, mostly from the Slavic ethnic group, were taken from Ukraine to the US Army's Walter Reed Research Institute, Kirillov said.
Clarification from the US
On the contrary, a spokesperson from the State Department has clarified the nature of biological research facilities located in Ukraine in the middle of conflicting accusations between the American and Russian officials.
As mentioned, Moscow has alleged to have revealed a plot by Kyiv to release biological or chemical weapons "as a pretext for blaming Russia" and drawing in additional support for the initiatives of Ukraine to resist a military invasion from the neighboring country, Newsweek reported.
Asked by Florida Senator Marco Rubio if Ukraine had biological or chemical weapons, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified early this week that Ukraine has certainly biological research facilities, which in fact, they are quite worried that Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to get control of.
Nuland added, they are therefore working with the Ukrainians on how any of the said research materials can be prevented from falling into the Russian forces' hands should they approach.
Report about the biolabs in Ukraine is shown on WION's YouTube video bellow:
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