Russian Defense Ministry named the names of Ukrainians involved in the American biological program

By tass.ru - © Ministry of Defense of Russia - March 10, 09:16

MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has published the names of representatives of Ukrainian companies and state institutions involved in the implementation of US military biological programs. They were named at a briefing by Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops (RCBZ) of the Russian Armed Forces.

In particular, the head of the sanitary and epidemiological department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhiy Morgun, was involved in organizing an interaction between the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the American agency to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

He recalled that the names of a number of participants in such military biological programs in Washington had already been made public. "Today we would like to supplement this list with representatives of state institutions and private companies of Ukraine involved in the implementation of American military biological programs," he said.

According to Kirillov, the head of the sanitary and epidemiological department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhiy Morgun, was involved in organizing interaction between the country's Ministry of Defense and the US Agency for the Reduction of the Threat of Mass Destruction Weapons (DTRA) and was also among the leaders of the UP-8 project to study the areas of the causative agent of the Congo-Crimean fever and hantaviruses on the territory of Ukraine.

Volodymyr Kurpita, head of the Center for Public Health of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, noted that he "carried out general control and management of the interaction of Ukrainian specialists with DTRA, organized the selection of biological samples from Ukrainian citizens and their transfer abroad."

Kirillov also pointed out that Irina Demchishina, head of the reference laboratory at the Center for Public Health, acted as an intermediary in interaction with Pentagon contractors and supervised the implementation of the UP and TAP series projects.

“The personalities presented on the slide are only a small part of the Ukrainian military biological dossier,” said the head of the RCBZ troops, commenting on the materials presented at the briefing. “In total, the Russian Ministry of Defense has information about more than 100 participants in dual-purpose biological programs.”

According to Kirillov, at the moment, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation is checking more than 10 US citizens, as well as a number of officials of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, for involvement in the implementation of American military biological programs.

By tass.ru - October 27, 2022, 08:52

What is known about the Pentagon's Biolabs outside the US

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On October 27, the UN Security Council will consider a Russian draft resolution proposing the creation of a commission to investigate the activities of US biological laboratories in Ukraine

TASS-DOSIER. On October 27, 2022, the UN Security Council will consider a Russian draft resolution proposing the creation of a commission to investigate the activities of US biological laboratories in Ukraine.

According to the Russian Federation, the United States has deployed a network of biological laboratories in a number of states neighboring Russia, where, under the auspices of the US defense department, work is being done with dangerous viruses and other pathogens. The American side claims that the laboratories act in the interests of the security of the United States and its allies, and rejects the version of the possible creation of biological weapons in these institutions.

Department of Defense Office of Threat Reduction

Since 1998, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has been operating in the US Department of Defense system. This organization is responsible for countering the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons); develops measures and means of protecting the armed forces and the population of the United States and its allies in the event of the use of WMD.

DTRA was formed on October 1, 1998, during the reorganization of the US Department of Defense and the amalgamation of the previously existing Defense Special Weapons Agency, the On-Site Inspection Agency and the Defense Technology Security Administration, as well as the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program,

The Pentagon deployed the Biological Threat Reduction Program and the Cooperative Biological Engagement Program. Within the framework of the programs, agreements were concluded with the governments of a number of countries on joint counteraction to the threat of especially dangerous infections (including outbreaks of diseases "caused intentionally or accidentally").

According to the US Embassy in Ukraine, part of the coordination of the work of biological laboratories is carried out through the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center (STCU, STCU, headquartered in Kyiv).

The center was established in 1993 at the initiative of the United States, Canada, and Sweden to provide support to scientists and specialists who were involved in the creation of Soviet weapons of mass destruction and missile technology. Currently, the STCU member countries are Azerbaijan,

Russia's concerns

For the first time, Gennady Onishchenko (head of Rospotrebnadzor in 2004-2013) announced a possible threat from bio laboratories with American participation. In 2011-2013, he repeatedly argued that African swine fever, the foci of which since 2007 were registered on the territory of 24 constituent entities of the Russian Federation (more than 440 thousand heads of pigs were destroyed during the elimination of foci), could be brought to Russia from Georgia.

The head of Rospotrebnadzor called what was happening an "artificially introduced situation" and "economic sabotage" and mentioned the Georgian-American Public Health Research Center. Richard Lugar in the suburbs of Tbilisi is a possible source of the virus.

On December 31, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation by his decree, which mentioned the expansion of the network of US military biological laboratories on the territory of states neighboring Russia. The document emphasized "uncertainty regarding the facts of the possession of biological weapons by foreign states, their potential for their development and production."

On October 4, 2018, Major General Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces (RCBZ) of the RF Armed Forces, said that the United States had launched an extensive military biological program on the territory of states neighboring Russia. According to Kirillov, the goal of the laboratories is "to collect data on infectious diseases and export national collections with strains of pathogenic microorganisms, which are capable of fighting against the effects of vaccines and are resistant to antibiotics," Kirillov said. The military leader regarded the existence of laboratories located in the territories adjacent to Russia and China as "a constant source of biological threats to our states."

On January 15, 2019, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta that there are about 200 US "biological military laboratories" in the world, and "their activities have little in common with peaceful science." The official position of the Russian Federation is supported by the Chinese authorities. On April 29, 2020, the Chinese Foreign Ministry pointed out the danger of the existence of US biological laboratories in the territory of the former USSR.

Facilities in Georgia and Armenia

Research Center for Public Health. Richard Lugar, created with American funds, has been operating in the village of Alekseevka near the Tbilisi International Airport in Georgia since 2011. On September 11, 2018, at a press conference in Moscow, the former Minister of State Security of Georgia, Igor Giorgadze, claimed that he had documents confirming the conduct of dangerous experiments at the center, and called on the US authorities to investigate the activities of the laboratory.

Giorgadze pointed out that US military and private contractors could perform secret human experiments there. Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon, in an interview with a TASS correspondent on September 15, 2018, argued that the United States is not developing biological weapons in the center of Lugar.

According to the commentary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on May 26, 2020, The Russian Federation sent a request to the Georgian side for a visit to the center by Russian specialized experts "on mutually beneficial terms." Their admission to the center of Lugar was not reported.

In September 2018, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant that, on his instructions, Russian specialists were admitted to American laboratories on Armenian territory. According to Pashinyan, specialists from the Russian Federation were then convinced that there was "nothing terrible" in the laboratories.

US bio laboratories in Ukraine

On August 29, 2005, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the US Department of Defense signed an agreement in the field of biological threat reduction. The document provided for the creation in Ukraine of a network of laboratories specializing in the determination of pathogens of infectious diseases. In August 2017, the CyberBerkut hacker organization published investigation materials, according to which, since 2009, 15 biological laboratories belonging to the Ministry of Health have been equipped in the country.

In 2020, the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from the Opposition Platform - For Life party Viktor Medvedchuk and Renat Kuzmin demanded that the Ukrainian authorities check the activities of laboratories, after the appearance of which outbreaks of dangerous diseases were noted on the territory of Ukraine. In response, the US Embassy in Kyiv reported,

Data obtained after the start of a special military operation of the RF Armed Forces in Ukraine

On March 6, 2022, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that the Russian Armed Forces, during a special operation in Ukraine, revealed the facts of an ongoing military biological program funded by the United States. According to Konashenkov, the documents received confirm that biological weapons components were being developed in Ukrainian bio laboratories in close proximity to Russian territory.

Igor Kirillov, the head of the RCHBZ troops of the RF Armed Forces, presented a report according to which a network of more than 30 biological laboratories was formed on the territory of Ukraine, which can be divided into research and sanitary-epidemiological ones. As follows from the report, the customer of the work being carried out is DTRA.

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, work was carried out in three main areas: monitoring the biological situation, selection and transfer of strains and biomaterials, including those obtained from military personnel, as well as research work to study potential bioweapon agents specific to the region.

The authors of the report of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation claimed that under the pretext of testing means for the treatment and prevention of coronavirus infection from Ukraine at the Research Institute named after. Walter Reed of the U.S. Army, several thousand samples of patient sera were taken out, "

According to Igor Kirillov, on February 24, the day the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine began, all laboratories received a task from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to completely destroy the bioagents stored there. As reported by the Russian defense department, the activities of biological laboratories have already led to an uncontrollable increase in the incidence of especially dangerous infections in Ukraine, including rubella, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and measles.

According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, military biological activities on the territory of Ukraine were carried out, including in the Kyiv Research Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases. L. V. Gromashevsky, Institute of Veterinary Medicine in Kyiv, Center for Public Health of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in Kyiv, Institute of Microbiology and Immunology. I. I. Mechnikov in Kharkiv, Ukrainian Research Anti-Plague Institute. I. I. Mechnikov in Odesa and the Lviv Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene.

According to data received by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the United States allocated about $200 million to finance the program.

On March 10, Major General Igor Konashenkov said that in the biological laboratories created and funded in Ukraine, "experiments were carried out with samples of coronavirus from bats."

Later, Igor Kirillov, head of the RCBZ troops of the RF Armed Forces, stated that the Hunter Biden Foundation (son of US President Joseph Biden) and the Soros Foundation were involved in financing the activities of 30 Ukrainian laboratories in 14 settlements. Laboratories, according to Kirillov, sent collected strains of infectious agents to the United States, while the movement of pathogens was not controlled under the WHO, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons (BTWC) or other international institutions.

On October 25, Russia sent an official complaint to the UN Security Council in connection with the activities of US biological laboratories in Ukraine.

On October 27, the State Duma adopted at a meeting a draft appeal of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to the parliaments of the countries of the world on the need to strengthen the BTWC regime on their destruction. The parliamentarians call on their foreign colleagues "to join forces with Russia and join the investigation into the illegal military-biological activities of the United States in Ukraine."

The reaction of Ukraine and the United States

On March 7, 2022, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that the country is not engaged in the development of biological weapons. US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, speaking on March 9 at a hearing in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress, admitted that there are objects in Ukraine where research in the field of biology was carried out, and Washington tried to prevent them from falling under the control of Russian forces. According to her, the State Department was "concerned that the Russian military might try to take them under control."

On March 10, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, speaking at a briefing, called the allegations of the development of biological weapons in laboratories in Ukraine "classic Russian propaganda" and urged not to believe them.

On June 9, the Pentagon reported that the US authorities over the past 20 years have provided support to 46 different civilian laboratories, healthcare facilities, and disease diagnostic centers in Ukraine, while the interaction was carried out for peaceful purposes. According to the US military, there are no nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons programs in Ukraine.

Russian Parliamentary Commission

On March 22, the State Duma at a plenary session adopted a resolution to support the initiative to conduct a parliamentary investigation into the work of laboratories in Ukraine. On March 23, the Federation Council unanimously adopted a resolution to initiate an investigation. The parliamentary commission includes 14 deputies and 14 senators, the co-chairs are the vice-speaker of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya, and the vice-speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev. The result of the work of the commission should be a dossier that will be sent to the President of the Russian Federation, the government, and international organizations no later than March 2023.

On September 22, at a meeting of the commission, Irina Yarovaya said that the facts discovered by the commission confirm the conduct of experiments on Ukrainian servicemen, as well as "the whole system of work in Ukraine specifically on the components of biological weapons."