March 11, 2023
On February 10, 2023 Russian MoD informed the world community on dangerous US/Ukrainian bioactivity in Ukraine
The potential risks of the U.S. ‘dual-use programmes’, both inside and outside the country, have been repeatedly emphasised by the Russian Ministry of Defence.
An analysis of documents, some of which were obtained during the special military operation, shows that such research on enhancing the functions of dangerous pathogens conducted, including in the states of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, is systematic, and large U.S. pharmaceutical companies are involved in its implementation.
According to its functionality and level of biosafety, established laboratories can be divided into three categories.
The purpose of the first-level laboratory is to gather microorganism strains and their vectors from endemic areas and to prepare biomaterials for subsequent transmission.
Second-level labs prepare state collections of microbial strains for export overseas in addition to conducting research on the pathogens of extremely serious infectious diseases.
Third-level labs are outfitted with maximum biological containment facilities and are entrusted with gathering data on the biological situation in certain states whose territories the Pentagon intends to employ for the deployment of its military contingents.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has repeatedly highlighted the role of the U.S. company EcoHealth Alliance in US military biological projects, following which the company’s activities have come under scrutiny in the United States itself. The U.S. Department of Health initiated an investigation of the company and evaluated the effectiveness of oversight activities. … It was discovered that the corporation had neglected to report the nature of the study being done in a timely manner, and that the oversight body had failed to act promptly to reduce the risks associated with this kind of research. According to the report’s findings, the regulatory body, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), is not equipped to efficiently monitor the distribution of federal grants, comprehend the nature of the research being done, pinpoint potential problem areas, and implement the necessary corrective measures.
The inability of the U.S. administration to ensure the necessary level of control over dual-use research carried out in the country is also confirmed by other documents.
On 27 January 2023, for example, a panel of experts from the United States National Biosecurity Research Advisory Council submitted a report to assess the effectiveness of existing biosafety legislation. The report addressed dual-use research and research into the increased potential of pandemic infections, two of the major topics of greatest concern to the BWC. It also cites inadequate monitoring of BWC-relevant biological research as its main areas of concern. The paper calls once again for greater transparency, and for contractors – whether private or public – to be required to notify oversight bodies of their goals, objectives and potential risks (whether they are conducting experiments within or outside the United States).
Since the time that talks on a legally binding protocol to the BWC were stalled, such calls to the U.S. leadership have been heard for more than twenty years. Nevertheless, the White House is not disposed to listen, not even to the advice of its own experts.
The Russian Federation’s disclosure of U.S. military and biological activities outside its national territory makes a growing number of countries wonder about the real reasons for the activity of U.S. research facilities on their territory.
The Russian Defence Ministry has already given names of participants in U.S. military biological programmes. These include officials from the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. biotech companies and Pentagon contractors.
Russian MoD disclosed the names of representatives of Ukrainian state institutions and private companies involved in US military and biological programmes to this list:
Sergey Morgun is head of the Sanitary and Epidemiological Department of the AFU and one of the organisers of the interaction between the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and the Threat Reduction Directorate (DTRA). He was one of the leaders of the U-P-8 project, supervising hantavirus research.
Previously this post was held by Sergey Litovka, who oversaw life and health risk testing on Ukrainian military personnel as part of the Congo-Crimean fever virus and hantavirus research.
Vladimir Kurpita, Head of the Public Health Centre, supervised and managed the interaction of Ukrainian specialists with DITRA and organised the collection of biological samples from Ukrainian citizens and their transfer abroad.
Irina Demchyshyna, Head of Reference Laboratories of the Public Health Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, acted as intermediary in interaction with Pentagon contractors Black&Veatch and Metabiota, supervised implementation of DTRA projects of UP and TAP series.
The persons on the slide are only a small part of the Ukrainian military-biological dossier.
In total, the Russian MoD has information on more than a hundred participants
in dual-use biological programmes.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation is currently checking more than 10 United States citizens, as well as a number of officials of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, for their involvement in the aforementioned programmes.
The Russian MoD outlined that the U.S. authorities contradict themselves in their statements regarding the work of U.S. biological laboratories in Ukraine.
Thus, in his statement of 31 January 2023, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed the presence of U.S. biolaboratories in Ukraine, while indicating that they had been abandoned by personnel and ‘...deactivated...’ before the Russian Special Military Operation was launched on February 24, 2022.
It is to be reminded that Kirby was an Admiral in the U.S. Navy, the entity that oversaw the US Military Biological Laboratories (NAMRU) overseas.
However, the documents the Russian MoD obtained refute Kirby’s statement. Note the official address by David Smith, Director of the Kiev office of CH2M-Hill – a key Pentagon contractor – dated 6 December 2022, to Ukrainian institutions participating in the Program to Counter Highly Dangerous Pathogens in Ukraine.
The document reports on the continuation of the DTRA biological programme in Ukraine and outlines the main objectives for the current period. These include further consolidation of collections of dangerous pathogens, as well as deployment of biorisk management and epidemiological monitoring systems.
In January 2023, the Government of Ukraine approved new requirements for the accounting, storage, transportation, and destruction of microorganisms, toxins, and poisons of animal and plant origin. Notably, the document pays special attention to the international carriage by air of substances with the highest hazard class ‘A’ (biological agents that can cause disability or death). In the standard templates for accompanying documents, only U.S. laboratories or companies are listed as recipients and shippers of hazardous biomaterials.
Thus, under the pretext of reducing the risks of spreading infectious diseases, the Kiev regime continues to cooperate with the Pentagon in the military-biological sphere, including the transfer of pathogenic biomaterials.
Such activities may be carried out for launching provocations with dangerous pathogens with the subsequent imposition of responsibility on the Russian Federation.
[Note: PPT slides to this Report in English are being sent separately]
Written by Vladimir P. Kozin
