The United States is creating components of biological weapons in the immediate vicinity of Russia's borders, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian armed forces, said on Tuesday.

"According to the results of the analysis of documentation and the interview of eyewitnesses, we have no doubt that the United States, under the guise of ensuring global biosafety, conducted dual-use research, including the creation of biological weapons components in the immediate vicinity of the Russian borders," he said, noting that the work was conducted in US biolabs in the Donetsk and Lugansk republics (LPRD and DPR) and Kherson regions.

According to him, over 2,000 documents of different projects and plans were analyzed by Russia, which confirmed Washington's plans to develop bioweapons in Ukraine.

"I would like to note that none of the facts announced by Russian Defense Ministry were rejected by the United States, no one, including Western countries, had doubts about the authenticity of the published documents," Kirillov said.

The US has resumed the program for the construction of biological laboratories in Ukraine and is expanding the format to train Ukrainian biologists, Kirillov said last week.

"Despite the forced pause pertaining to the Russian special military operation [in Ukraine], [the US’] activities under the program have now been resumed. The main tasks at this stage are to continue the construction of biological laboratories in Ukraine, as well as expand the format for training Ukrainian biologists," he told reporters then.

In June 2022, the Pentagon admitted that the US government supported 46 biological research facilities in Ukraine for the past 20 years. 

In a document titled 'Fact Sheet on WMD Threat Reduction Efforts,' the US Department of Defense for the first time revealed then the specific number of facilities its government has sponsored in Ukraine.

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