The Russian Ministry of Defense announced at a press conference on March 6 that Russia had discovered a military biological program funded by the United States and implemented in Ukraine during military operations.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov said there was evidence that several U.S.-funded Ukrainian biological laboratories near the Russian border had been engaged in the development of biological and chemical weapons. According to the documents seized by the Russian army, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health ordered the Poltava Biological Laboratory and the Kharkiv Biological Laboratory on February 24, the day when Russia’s military operation against Ukraine began, requiring the staff to urgently destroy it. Viruses that can cause plague, anthrax, and cholera.
"We have received documents from Ukrainian biolab staff regarding the urgent destruction of pathogens of particularly dangerous diseases on February 24, including plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases," Konashenkov said. It is being analyzed by Russian experts, and the Russian Ministry of Defense is expected to announce the results of the analysis soon.
Earlier, Brazil’s Rio Times reported that an investigative reporter posted on social media that on February 26, the U.S. embassy in Ukraine removed from its website all documents related to the Pentagon-funded Ukrainian biological laboratory. According to reports, one of the biological laboratories is located in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. In January 2016, at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers died in two days from a flu-like virus, and another 200 were taken to hospital. However, the Ukrainian government did not provide details about the dead soldiers.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the documents would prove Ukraine and the United States violated Article 1 of the United Nations' Biological Weapons Convention, which states that each party "shall not develop, produce, stockpile, acquire or retain biological weapons under any circumstances." 183 countries, including the United States, Ukraine, Russia, and China, are signatories to the document.
Several documents and archives released by the Russian Ministry of Defense show that according to the martial law order issued by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 24, the Ukrainian health security department asked relevant laboratories to urgently destroy "biological pathogens used to ensure the laboratory's quality management system". . Specific precautions and a list of pathogens to be destroyed are also listed in the annex to the document.
"Russia Today," said it could not independently verify the authenticity of these documents, and the United States and Ukraine have not made any comment on the relevant allegations of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The United States has set up more than 200 overseas biological laboratories in 25 countries and regions, including Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Soviet Union, some of which have experienced large-scale infectious disease outbreaks in the locations of the laboratories. Concerns about sex and clandestine activities.
Snopes and other websites quoted the Kyiv Post as saying that the Ukrainian Ministry of Health signed a framework agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense in 2005, covering Odessa, Kharkov, Lviv, Kyiv and other regions in Ukraine. 's laboratory was modified to "prevent the spread of technologies, pathogens and related information that could be used in the development of biological and chemical weapons".
The U.S. "Chicago Tribune" said in a report at the time that the U.S. Department of Defense used its "Bio-Threat Reduction Program" to provide partial funding for the upgrade of the Ukrainian laboratory, "but the facility was guided by the Ukrainian government by the country's laws. The Ukrainian National Security Agency said at the time that the relevant laboratory is affiliated with the Ukrainian health department, and the upgrade funds mainly come from the Ukrainian state budget.
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine raised the issue again in April 2020, saying that the U.S. Department of Defense worked with the Ukrainian government through the Biothreat Reduction Program to "consolidate and protect pathogens and toxins of security concern" at Ukrainian government facilities.
RIA Novosti said that the chairman of the Russian Federal Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastregin, has instructed relevant departments to investigate the allegations made by the Russian Ministry of Defense. If the news is confirmed, the agency will ask investigators to make a decision on filing a case and find out. All "involved persons".
