US defends Biolabs in Ukraine

• 

The United States defended on Tuesday once again its biosecurity cooperation with Ukraine, claiming that their activities were in support of the Biological Weapons Convention.

According to US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, technical experts from the United States worked with Ukrainian delegations and "unambiguously" explained their cooperation.

Allegedly, the cooperative effort was conducted as part of the broader US Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and also included US assistance to Ukraine related to public health facilities, biosafety, biosecurity, and disease surveillance.

Russia sent in late July a formal request for a consultation meeting of the party states to the Biological Weapons Convention after it provided the states with documents proving how the US was funding a network of biological laboratories in Ukraine.

Price went on to dismiss Russia's assertions about Washington developing biological weapons in Ukraine, claiming that Russia's accusations were part of Moscow's "ongoing disinformation campaign" and an attempt to "malign peaceful US cooperation with Ukraine." 

Russia's Ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said during a UN Security Council meeting that Moscow would activate Articles 5 and 6 of the Biological Weapons Convention BWC to investigate the Biolabs in Ukraine.

Article 5 of the BWC stipulates that "The states, parties to this Convention, undertake to consult one another and to co-operate in solving any problems which may arise in relation to the objective of, or in the application of the provisions of, the Convention. Consultation and co-operation pursuant to this Article may also be undertaken through appropriate international procedures within the framework of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter."    

Article 6 states that "any state party to this Convention, which finds that any other state party is acting in breach of obligations deriving from the provisions of the Convention, may lodge a complaint with the Security Council of the United Nations. Such a complaint should include all possible evidence confirming its validity, as well as a request for its consideration by the Security Council."

The head of the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing said there are more than 300 US-funded civilian and military biological laboratories in the world, hinting that they are particularly concentrated in Ukraine.

The funders, according to documents provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense, are Hunter Biden and his investment fund, Rosemont Seneca, and George Soros and his notorious Open Society Foundation. 

The chief of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces Igor Kirillov said recently that the United States was planning on transferring its programs of biological research from Ukraine to post-Soviet republics, as well as Eastern European and Baltic states.

The US had been denying the existence of the biolabs for months before confirming Russia's accusations, with Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland saying Washington had what she referred to as "biological research facilities" in Ukraine.

Nuland refused to cooperate with the Russian parliamentary commission on the operations of US biological laboratories in Ukraine, Deputy Speaker of Russia's Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev said late last month.

Data on biological laboratories found in Ukraine does not help the case of the US against claims regarding its compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had said.

Moscow also exhibited documents confirming the organization of military-biological work by the Pentagon represented by the US Department of Defense Threat Reduction Department.