Russia Says US Experimenting With COVID In Ukraine Bio-labs, US Says Labs Peaceful

By Donald Standeford, Correspondent - Follow -
Date Published: March 10, 2022 09:30AM UTC
Last Modified: March 10, 2022 09:30AM UTC

MOSCOW - The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that the United States has been carrying out experimentation on bat coronavirus samples in U.S. established and U.S. funded bio-labs in Ukraine and that it was first revealed during Russia's 'special operation' in Ukraine. According to Turkish news, China has 'demanded answers' from the United States regarding the '26 bio-labs in Ukraine'.

Russian state news RIA Novosti reported, "The Russian Defense Ministry said U.S.-established and funded bio-labs in Ukraine have been experimenting with bat coronavirus samples, documents show" and a press release by the Russian Ministry of Defense stated "On behalf of the Pentagon, Ukrainian scientists were studying mechanisms for the covert spread of deadly pathogens".

Washington says that it is not engaged in the development of biological or chemical weapons. Government officials have stated, however that a Russian invasion of Ukraine risks the release of 'dangerous pathogens' from bio weapons facilities in Ukraine. Washington claims that these 26 facilities are 'public and animal health labs' which is quoted by the the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists stated that they are 'peaceful scientific research and disease surveillance' programs, and not a covert bio weapons operation. Many have asked however, that if they were such programs, then why are they being funded by the Pentagon and not the Department of Health? They allude that this means they were used for military purposes, and not domestic purposes as reported by officials. We don't know the answer to this and we will not be getting into speculation, but if we find out why we will certainly be reporting on it.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has called the allegations 'preposterous' and said "We took note of Russia’s false claims about alleged U.S. biological weapons labs and chemical weapons development in Ukraine. We’ve also seen Chinese officials echo these conspiracy theories".

"This is preposterous" she stated. "It’s the kind of disinformation operation we’ve seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years in Ukraine and in other countries, which have been debunked, and an example of the types of false pretexts we have been warning the Russians would invent".

"The United States is in full compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention and does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere,” she claimed. “It’s Russia that has a long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons, including in attempted assassinations and poisoning of Putin’s political enemies like Alexey Navalny".

"It’s Russia that continues to support the Assad regime in Syria, which has repeatedly used chemical weapons. It’s Russia that has long maintained a biological weapons program in violation of international law. Also, Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating".

"In December, Russia falsely accused the U.S. of deploying contractors with chemical weapons in Ukraine. This is all an obvious ploy by Russia to try to try to justify its further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine".

"Now that Russia has made these false claims, and China has seemingly endorsed this propaganda, we should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them. It’s a clear pattern" Psaki stated.

Turkish news aa.com.tr however, has reported that China is demanding answers from the United States for the '26 bio-labs in Ukraine' and said that military 'bio-labs' must carry 'all dangerous viruses in Ukraine'.

The Turkish news site says that China has asked Washington Tuesday to release 'relevant details as soon as possible' regarding the alleged US biological laboratories in Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian stated "According to the data released by the US itself, the US has 26 biological laboratories and other related facilities in Ukraine which has indeed attracted great attention".

Zhao stated "All dangerous viruses in Ukraine must be stored in these laboratories. All research activities are led by the US. No information is allowed to be disclosed without the permission of the US side" and claimed that the Pentagon has "has absolute control" over the alleged bio-labs in Ukraine".

"Under the current situation, we call on all parties concerned to ensure the safety of these laboratories, starting from the health and safety of people in Ukraine and surrounding areas and around the world" Zhao stated.

"In particular, the US, as the party that knows these laboratories best, should announce the relevant details as soon as possible, including which viruses have been stored and which research has been carried out. The revelation of the US bio-military activity in Ukraine is just the tip of the iceberg".

"The US Department of Defense controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world under the names of ‘cooperating to reduce biosecurity risks and strengthening global public health" Zhao added.

Hua Chunying, a Chinese government official posted screenshots of the U.S. embassy website claiming that the embassy deleted 'all documents about 11 Pentagon-funded biolabs in Ukraine'. The screenshot they show to prove 'the site cannot be reached' shows a partial URL to a folder and document structure called countries/ukraine/895/dtro-dnipropetrovsk-rdvl_eng.pdf. We think that it's important to note that these screenshots could either be real, or they could be faked. We haven't yet seen evidence to verify the validity of the screenshots in question, but we will be looking into it further.

Again, we will not be getting into speculation. There are already too many people jumping to quick conclusions without enough data to verify that claims made about this situation are correct. We will however, try our best to report all sides of the story so that people have a solid overview of about claims being made, and why. We will continue to look into this and report more if we find out more.

The following is a link to the official website for the U.S. US Embassy in Ukraine, which addresses the U.S. Biological Threat Reduction Program. The page can be found HERE.