Russia Says New Ukraine Biolab Data Points to Weapons Work
Russia says new documents on Ukraine biolabs point to biological weapons work, citing U.S.-linked projects, pathogens and secret research.
Russia’s Defense Ministry says it has obtained new materials during the special military operation pointing to work in Ukraine connected with the development of biological weapons. The details were presented at a briefing by Lieutenant General Aleksey Rtishchev, head of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops.
According to Rtishchev, the documents in the ministry’s possession show that the research was not focused on the most urgent problems facing Ukraine’s public health system. Instead, he said, attention was centered on studying the damaging properties of potential biological weapons agents, as well as pathogens capable of harming a country’s economy.
He also linked the placement of such laboratories to materials from U.S. national intelligence that were published late last week. Rtishchev said those data did not include the UP projects.
The legal basis for this work, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, was an agreement with Washington signed in 2005. Rtishchev said the activity was carried out under heightened secrecy, with Ukrainian specialists denied access to some information and facilities. Coordination was handled by the U. S. Defense Department’s threat reduction agency.
Among the main contractors, Rtishchev named Metabiota, Black & Veatch and CH2M Hill. He said they were involved in building facilities and supplying equipment, while funding was distributed through a grant system with the participation of the Ukrainian and International Science and Technology Centers.
Rtishchev separately pointed to the Mechnikov Institute in Ukraine, which he said is being reconstructed by the United States. He argued that the list of pathogens stored there does not match the country’s current epidemiological situation, where cases of rubella, diphtheria and tuberculosis are on the rise. In his assessment, this points to attempts to create biological weapons components in Ukrainian biolaboratories.
The institute’s activity, he noted, had already been raised at a consultative meeting of states party to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, convened at Russia’s initiative. The questions concerned the volume of containers holding cholera, tularemia and brucellosis pathogens. Rtishchev said the figures were overstated and that no documents confirming their peaceful use had been provided. The violation, according to him, was reflected in a Ukrainian Health Ministry report after an inspection of the institute’s strain collection.
Another case cited by Rtishchev involved the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine in Kharkov. Research there focused on infectious animal diseases, including severe illnesses that can spread to humans and cause damage to agriculture.
He paid particular attention to the glanders pathogen. A separate project studying it, he said, was financed and completed under the U.S. program on zoonotic infections, even though cases of the disease had never been recorded in Ukraine.