09.10.2023 (11:35)
Briefing by Chief of Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov on the U.S. military-biological activity
The Russian Defence Ministry continues the analysis of U.S. military biological activity on the territory of Ukraine and other states.
Materials of Russian Defence Ministry briefing on U.S. military biological activity
As we pointed out before, under the pretence of support to develop national healthcare systems efforts on countering bioterrorism and proliferation of biological weapon threats many states got in the sphere of U.S. military interests. Moreover, the U.S. Department of State takes part in bioprogrammes at the territory of a number of states.
The Russian Defence Ministry presented documents, which prove direct involvement of U.S. State Department in so-called ‘Biosecurity Engagement Programm’ launched by ex U.S. president Barak Obama. In priorities of these programmes Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African states, as well as Ukraine, were listed among others.
To cover up clients and goals of conducted research Washington involves third-party contractors. These include contractors and intermediary organisations (Metabiota, CH2M Hill, EcoHealth Alliance, and more than 20 companies).
Non-profit and non-governmental organizations are used as a cover up to conceal U.S. Department of State involvement. According to acquired documents, in one year alone, sums were allocated to ensure the participation of at least eighty contractors.
The documents published by the Russian Defence Ministry drew attention of foreign media.
A number of news organizations highlighted the key role of Ukraine in Pentagon’s military biological programmes. Thus, in the publication of the Greek publication BankingNews it is noted that ‘…Ukraine occupies a central position and represents an area of special geographical interest in the bioprogramme of the U.S. State Department…’.
Barack Obama’s involvement in the promotion of U.S. military biological programmes abroad was reported by the Romanian information resource Flax-24. The publication noted that ‘…the U.S. president has been promoting the military biological programme at the stage of the State Department’s involvement in this activity…’.
A number of media resources in the Middle East region (Lebanon, Yemen, Syria) published materials about the unjustified expansion of the network of U.S. biological laboratories abroad. At the same time, the Lebanese edition An-Nahar noted that the geographical priorities of the United States in the Middle East are Iraq, Yemen and Jordan, drawing attention to the clandestine nature of the United States’ military biological activities.
Chinese experts, commenting on the briefing on the discovery of a clandestine bio-lab in Ridley, California, noted that: ‘…the United States lacks proper control over the results of its dual-use research and development…’.
I would like to point out that following the publication by the Russian Federation of data on illegal biological experiments at the California laboratory, the United States administration initiated an investigation procedure. Three committees of the United States Congress at once began to examine the activities of Prestige Biotech, which had rented the premises where the federally prohibited research was carried out.
The local administration attempted to place responsibility for the organisation of the bio-lab to China, but no conclusive evidence was provided.
According to the information available to us, Prestige Biotech is registered in the State of Nevada, and allegedly by accident the bio-lab that was the subject of the investigation is located in close proximity to the U.S. Navy base in Kings County.
Earlier we gave a scheme of organisation of military biological activities in the U.S., in which the Navy plays the role of one of the main clients and coordinators of research.
According to available documents, Prestige Biotech purchased more than 20 titles of pathogenic microorganisms, laboratory equipment and animals for undeclared purposes. This is confirmed by the materials of an independent investigation conducted by the American human rights organisation Judicial Watch.
The documents obtained by the aforementioned NGO prove the presence of dangerous biomaterials at the facility and their improper storage, as well as gross violation of sanitary norms in the handling of laboratory animals.
The clandestine nature of the work is evidenced by the fact that the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services refused to provide information about the laboratory’s activities, and representatives of these agencies were summoned to the U.S. Congress to provide confidential information.
We have repeatedly emphasised the involvement of U.S. security agencies such as the FBI and the CIA in dual-use research and Washington’s desire to cover up the results of these efforts.
Note the document on establishing a journal of classified publications on chemical and biological defence by Morgan Minyard of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Directorate of Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
The Pentagon official proposes the establishment of an editorial committee that would clean up for publication of scientific papers of interest to the U.S. intelligence community, as well as classify ‘dual-use’ papers that: ‘…could cause irreparable damage to national security…’ and accumulate them in a separate repository with limited access.
Examples of studies that will be recorded into the database include experiments to increase the lethality of mouse smallpox virus and the identification of the genetic sequence encoding a new type of botulinum toxin.
It is noted that the use of the classified journal will allow the U.S. Government ‘…to maximise the deployment of chemical and biological research, and to engage with identified contractors and partners…’.
Such censorship of publications indicates Washington’s willingness to avoid publicising results that contradict U.S. international obligations in the field of chemical and biological weapons.
The Russian Defence Ministry has information about the development in the United States of a secret Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The open (unclassified) part of the document was published on 27 September 2023. It specifies the provisions of the National Defence Strategy in the area of responding to WMD-related threats to national security.
The Pentagon estimates that the Russian Federation, China, Iran, and the DPRK view weapons of mass destruction as a means of limiting the United States’ capability to achieve strategic objectives in wars and military conflicts.
According to the Strategy, Russia is described as a source of ‘acute threat’ to U.S. security in the medium to long term.
The People’s Republic of China is identified as a ‘growing threat.’ It is stressed that Beijing has recently made significant progress in modernising its strategic nuclear forces. The DPRK and Iran are identified as persistent threats.
According to the plan of the people involved, the priority areas of the U.S. Department of Defense activity are:
ensuring the defence of the states’ territory against external aggression using WMD;
unconditional deterrence of potential adversaries from using WMD against the U.S. and its allies;
establishment of combined units capable of effectively fighting and winning in conditions of CBRN contamination.
At the same time, the Strategy seeks to coordinate and increase efforts to develop means of defence against emerging chemical and biological threats.
Thus, by abandoning work on a verification protocol within the BWC, the United States is creating administrative and technical bodies that can be involved in dual-use research, including for offensive purposes.
I would like to point out that Russian efforts to expose illegal U.S. military biological activities and the deteriorating epidemic situation near biosites in the European region have forced the U.S. Administration to withdraw dual-use research to countries in Africa.
The documents at our disposal confirm the activities of key Pentagon contractors on the African continent — in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Uganda and South Africa. Customers on the part of the U.S. Government are DTRA, the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of State.
We previously spoke about unauthorised sample gathering by employees of Metabiota, a key Pentagon contractor, during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The company’s nontransparent practices immediately raised questions from the World Health Organisation. As a result of the illegal export of samples, live samples of the Ebola virus ended up at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infections.
Predictable deterioration of the disease situation near American biosites is forcing the governments of many African States to take another look at the necessity and expediency of co-operation with the United States. For example, in 2022, Metabiota operations in Africa were terminated because the company’s illegal practices raised too many questions at the level of national governments.
The U.S. activities to establish global biological control are accompanied by the substitution of the BWC provisions and other norms of international legislation with its own rules, which are developed in American interests, supported by the collective West and imposed on third countries for implementation.
This can be traced in the work at specialised international platforms, when Western delegations pushed through decision-making only on issues of interest to them, without any regard for the priorities of other states. At the same time, attention is deliberately shifted to the consideration of secondary issues not directly related to the problems of non-proliferation of biological weapons, for example, such as the creation of all kinds of databases, ensuring gender equality, participation in BWC activities by youth organisations, etc.
Let me remind you that the Russian Federation has proposed a number of initiatives to strengthen the biological weapons non-proliferation regime and to improve confidence-building measures within the framework of the Convention.
Above all, that includes resumption of negotiations to develop a legally binding comprehensive protocol to the BWC with an effective verification mechanism involving lists of pathogens, toxins, specialised equipment.
The second is the expansion of the confidence-building measures format by providing information on biological defence research and development performed outside national jurisdiction.
The third is the establishment of the Scientific Advisory Committee to evaluate advances in science and technology with geographical representation and equal rights of participants.
The fourth is the use of mobile bio-medical teams within the BWC.
Practical implementation of our proposals will facilitate the increase the national biological programmes ‘transparency and compliance with the requirements of the Convention by all States Parties without exception, including the USA.
The Russian Defence Ministry has already given the names of participants in U.S. military biological warfare programmes. They include officials from the biotechnology corporations and the Pentagon contractors related to U.S. Department of Defense.
Today we would like to complete this list with representatives of U.S. and Ukrainian government agencies and private companies involved in the implementation of dual-use research.
Thomas Wohl — Vice President and official representative of Black & Veatch in Ukraine, supervised the implementation of the electronic PAX system for the management and control of biological agents and materials.
Kevin Olival — Vice President of Research for contractor EcoHealth Alliance and has been directly involved in the U.S. Department of Defense projects on zoonotic diseases transmitted by bats.
Mikhail Usaty — Deputy Head of Sanitary and Epidemiological Department of the AFU, since 2018 supervised the organisation of works within the framework of DTRA projects on the territory of Ukraine.
Tatyana Kiryazova — Executive Director of the Ukrainian Institute on Public Health Policy. She supervised U.S. joint pathogen research at the Ukrainian Mechnikov Anti-Plague Research Institute in Odessa.
The information provided on the people involved in military biological activities will be passed on to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
Thus, questions to the U.S. and Ukraine’s biological-military activities remain unanswered and its number increases. Since the Russian side convened a consultative meeting on Article 5 of the BWC, the questions that could settle the situation still remain unanswered.
We will continue to analyse incoming documents and keep you informed.