ST. PETERSBURG, May 17. /TASS/. US laboratories’ tests on Ukrainians can be considered as experiments in using biological weapons, the president of the national research center Kurchatov Institute, Mikhail Kovalchuk, said on the sidelines of the educational marathon conference New Horizons, organized by the Russian Znanie (Knowledge) society.

Earlier on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the jubilee summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization that US laboratories on the post-Soviet space were gathering biological materials with the aim of "studying for their own purposes the specifics of spreading viruses and dangerous diseases." In Ukraine they were in fact working on components of biological weapons.

"The Americans dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki without hesitation. They will not hesitate to use us, Slavs, as biomaterial for experiments. In reality this is not an experiment, but training in the use of future biological weapons," Kovalchuk said.

The scientist recalled the brutal experiments on humans the Japanese military staged during World War II and in the prewar years with the aim of creating biological weapons.

"We [Soviet citizens] and the Chinese were the material they used. Instead of all bringing all these people [organizers of experiments on humans] to justice the Americans gave them asylum. Now we have the answer why - the experiments at the psychiatric hospital in Merefa, near Kharkov," he said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee is currently scrutinizing evidence concerning illegal military biological activity in Ukraine. According to the available information, in 2019-2021 US scientists tested potentially harmful biological agents on patients of a regional clinical psychiatric hospital in Merefa, near Kharkov. The persons with mental problems were selected for tests on the basis of their age, nationality and immune status. There are eyewitness accounts confirming these inhuman acts.

About biolaboratories

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov earlier said the special military operation in Ukraine produced evidence the Kiev regime was urgently eliminating traces of a US Department of Defense-funded military biological program in Ukraine. He said that according to staffers of Ukrainian biolaboratories a number of extremely dangerous pathogens, such as those causing plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other lethal diseases were urgently destroyed on February 24.

US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, while testifying before the US Senate’s foreign relations committee on March 9, acknowledged that in Ukraine there were some facilities conducting clandestine biological research and Washington was keen to prevent Russian forces from gaining control of these facilities. She said the US Department of State was "quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces."

Earlier, the State Duma and the Federation Council adopted a resolution to conduct a parliamentary investigation into the biological laboratories in Ukraine, as well as to create a joint panel of inquiry to conduct such a probe. The commission consists of 14 Duma members and as many Federation Council members. The State Duma’s deputy speaker, Irina Yarovaya, and the Federation Council’s deputy speaker, Konstantin Kosachev, are its co-chairs.

As Yarovaya said earlier, the commission's task was to produce a dossier that would be sent to Russia’s president and government and to international organizations. The dossier will present the necessary evidence, "highlight all cause-and-effect relationships, identify all threats and challenges, as well as name all involved organizations, international law entities and officials concerned".