MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. Russia’s parliamentary commission on investigating the activities of US biolabs in Ukraine will organize a videoconference with lawmakers in other countries to discuss the probe’s results as well as measures to ensure common security, Irina Yarovaya, the commission’s co-chair and deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house) said on Friday.
"Parliaments from foreign countries contacted us to voice their interest in a videoconference - the format which we proposed for the dialogue - to discuss our information and the measures of trust we are ready to offer as a state to ensure common and indivisible security," the Duma press service quoted her as saying.
Both houses of Russia’s parliament earlier adopted an appeal to the parliaments of world countries calling for measures to strengthen the regime of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.
According to Yarovaya, the upcoming ninth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention will be "somewhat of a historic milestone," which will provide insight into whether humankind would ever be able to avert "the disastrous consequences of the United States’ military-biological project."
"In this context, the results of the parliamentary investigation and the facts exposed by Russia thanks to the special operation in Ukraine will have a paramount significance for making the right decisions," she said, adding that the commission has collected evidence.
"First, we have confirmed and proved the fact that a military-biological project is being implemented in Ukraine. Second, it has been proven that the military-biological project in Ukraine focused on militarily important pathogens, a fact which deserves special attention," she said.
Apart from that, in her words, the commission has evidence that "samples of human tissue and blood serum, as well as dangerous pathogens and their carrying agents" were taken from Ukraine. According to Yarovaya, biological tests "in Ukraine are, as a matter of fact, a crime."
She said that the commission had compiled a report, which will be presented at the ninth review conference.
As for the measures of mutual trust, "Russia’s position remains unchanged," she stressed. "Its position is as follows: all additional measures of control and mutual trust are to be committed to paper in official documents that are adopted within the Convention. We are also interested in establishing control of the Convention signatories over the activities outside national territories, especially military-biological activities."
The commission consisting of 14 members of the State Duma (lower parliament house) and 14 members of the Federation Council (upper house) was set up in March after the Russian defense ministry said that the special military operation in Ukraine had produced evidence that Kiev’s regime was urgently eliminating traces of a US Department of Defense-funded military biological program in Ukraine. The ministry’s spokesman, Igor Konashenkov said back then that Ukrainian biolabs’ staffers testified that on February 24 pathogens of extremely dangerous diseases, such as plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and others were urgently disposed of.