MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry expects answers from the United States and Georgia on why toxic agents and biological weapons are being stored at the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center, Chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Major General Igor Kirillov said.

According to Kirillov, ministry’s experts have studied materials published by former Georgian State Security Minister Igor Giorgadze on US activities at the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center, located in the Georgian settlement of Alekseyevka outside of Tbilisi. He said that a number of patents listed various types of munitions intended for delivering chemical and biological agents.

"It brings to fore the question: ‘Why are such documents being stored at the Lugar Public Health Research Center?’ We expect a clear-cut answer to this question from the Georgian and American sides," Kirillov demanded.

The general said that the description of munitions included such characteristics as "… the low destruction cost and the absence of the need to contact with enemy manpower." According to him, "this corresponds to the concept of ‘non-contact warfare,’ the United States is implementing."

These patents indicate a possibility to stuff capsules with poisonous, radioactive, narcotic substances as well as with infectious disease pathogens.

"These munitions are not related to the list of conventional armaments and humane tools of warfare, while the publication of this information contradicts international accords on the prohibition of biological weapons," Kirillov added.

The United States is very likely to have tested a toxic drug or a highly lethal biological agent at the Lugar Center in Georgia under the guise of medical research, he added. Russian military specialists in the sphere of radiological, chemical and biological protection analyzed the materials published by former Georgian State Security Minister Igor Giorgadze on US activity at the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center located in the township of Alekseyevka near the capital of Tbilisi, Kirillov said.

The Russian general highlighted the deaths of patients at the Lugar Center when medicine under the Sovaldi brand in the documents had been tested.

Kirillov noted that the US-based Gilead Sciences, in which former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is a key shareholder, manufactured the drug.

"In fact, the simultaneous death of a large number of volunteers is reason to believe that a highly toxic chemical drug or a highly lethal biological agent was assessed under the guise of medical treatment at the Lugar Center," the general said.

Despite the deaths of 24 patients in December 2015 alone when the Sovaldi drug was tested, "this clinical research was continued in violation of international standards and contrary to the patients’ wishes," which "led to the death of 49 more people."

"Even during widespread epidemics at in-patient infection clinics, such a large number of lethal cases has never been recorded," the general said.

The above-mentioned Sovaldi medicine is listed in the Registration of Pharmaceuticals of the Russian Federation and "not a single lethal case was recorded during its clinical testing," Kirillov said.