Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov Accuses Pentagon of Running 'Biowarfare Facilities' in Ukraine

"The Pentagon built two biowarfare labs and they have been developing pathogens there in Kyiv and in Odessa."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the United States of assisting the Ukrainians with the development of 'biological warfare facilities' in Kyiv and Odessa. Lavrov leveled the charge at a press conference on Thursday, which was echoed by top-ranking Russian diplomatic negotiators at Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Belarus on Monday. Watch:

"We have data that the Pentagon is tied to chemical and biological installations in Ukraine," Lavrov claimed. "The Pentagon built two biowarfare labs and they have been developing pathogens there in Kyiv and in Odessa."

"And now they are concerned that they may lose control over these labs," he argued. "And you know what it may be like in future. And the Americans decline flatly and resolutely to start an inspection mechanism as part of the convention for the prohibition of chemical weapons. And they build new chemical and biological facilities all across Russian borders."

"And, you know, many other developments happen," Lavrov went on. "The CIA has been on the ground in droves, and they have been training the Ukrainian army, not to wage a war with Poland, apparently. And when developments in Iraq happened, when the United States claimed it was a threat to the U.S. national security, did anyone ask back then why the United States back then decided to bring a country 10,000 kilometers off its coast to order, because the U.S. is a great power?"

"When Russia says there is a threat to us, they start telling us that there is not a threat at all, but you know, we will decide what is needed to provide for our security," Lavrov stated. "And it's close and next to our borders, we will not go 10,000 kilometers away to enforce our rules."

Russia is therefore invoking the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a pretext for invading Ukraine. It turned out after the invasion that weapons inspectors could find scant if any evidence that then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was maintaining an active Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program. However, the New York Times reported that Iraq had old stockpiles of WMDs that were discovered by U.S. soldiers.

In May 2020, Lavrov accused the United States "categorically opposing the adoption of a protocol to the convention of banning biological and toxin weapons, which would establish a mechanism to verify compliance by member countries with their obligation not to produce such weapons."

"The United States' reluctance to ensure transparency of its military-biological activities in different regions of the world, of course, raises questions about what is really happening and what goals are being pursued," Lavrov said at a news conference after a virtial meeting with foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

"These laboratories are densely formed along the perimeter of the borders of the Russian Federation, and, accordingly, next to the borders of the People's Republic of China," Lavrov added.

Even while Lavrov is accusing the United States of funding and overseeing 'biowarfare' laboratories in Ukraine, the Biden administration is relying on his diplomacy to help reinstate the Iranian nuclear deal that was rescinded under former President Donald Trump. On Monday, Lavrov discussed the prospect of reinstating the nuclear deal with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian by phone, according to the Russian foreign ministry.

Diplomatic relations between Russia and Ukraine thus appear to be deadlocked amid a Putin-authorized invasion of his Eastern European neighbor. A high-ranking Russian negotiator claimed on Monday that the Ministry of Defense has evidence Ukraine developed biological weapons components.'

RIA Novosti reported that data obtained by the Russian Ministry of Defense on Ukraine's purported development of biological weapons components "confirm that the Russian Federation had good reasons for conducting a special military operation to demilitarize Ukraine," said Leonid Slutsky, head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs and a member of the Russian delegation at the talks with Ukraine.

As earlier reported, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that the Russian Defense Ministry would provide an "analysis of documents" on a program to create biological weapons components in Ukraine. Becker News translated and analyzed the documents here.

Slutsky also noted that, on February 24, according to the Ukrainian-language documents produced by Russia, laboratory staff in Ukraine received an order to immediately destroy especially dangerous pathogens, including the causative agents of 'plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera' and other deadly diseases.

"We are getting more and more confirmation that Russia had more than good reasons for conducting a special military operation to demilitarize Ukraine," Slutsky claimed on his Telegram channel.

The Duma delegate also noted that Moscow had repeatedly warned that U.S. biolaboratories, far from pursuing peaceful purposes, were located in a number of post-Soviet countries.

"But the so-called" world community "which today is going into Russophobic fits, was silent and simply "closed its eyes," Slutsky claimed. Now, Washington and Kiev 's "blatant violation of their international obligations, primarily the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and toxin weapons and on their destruction (BTWC), has become obvious. Just as it is obvious that it should be the subject of a separate investigation, including by the UN structures. If, of course, we talk about this in the coordinate system of objectivity and impartiality," he added.

On February 24, Russia launched military operations in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin claimed that the goal was "the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." According to Putin, his plan was to carry out a "demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine."

On Sunday, the Russian media outlet RIA Novosti released documents that the Ministry of Defense points to as evidence that Ukraine was undertaking research in U.S.-funded biolabs that has the capability to be used for bioweapons.

Major General Igor Konashenkov, an official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, provided the information to journalists. Moscow said that the documents, allegedly originating from employees of Ukrainian biological laboratories, confirmed that "components of biological weapons were being developed in Ukraine, in close proximity to Russian territory," as reported by RIA Novosti. Watch:

"In the course of a special military operation, the facts of an emergency cleansing by the Kiev regime of traces of a military biological program being implemented in Ukraine, funded by the US Department of Defense, were uncovered," Konashenkov said.

“We have received documentation from employees of Ukrainian biological laboratories on the emergency destruction of especially dangerous pathogens on February 24 — the causative agents of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases,” Konashenkov claimed.

The documents, with an exclusive translation via Becker News, follows below: