MOSCOW, May 5. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) exerted incredible pressure on participants in the American UP-4 project, under which strains with high epidemic potential were collected in Ukraine, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Friday.

"At least two species of migratory birds, whose migration routes take them across Russia, were studied as part of the project. Attempts to remove and destroy documents, as well as the material collected in the course of research indicate the dual nature of the work conducted. Apart from that, unprecedented pressure was exerted on the participants in the project by the Ukrainian Security Service," he told a briefing on the analysis of documents related to the United States’ military-biological activities.

He recalled that the UP-4 project was implemented in the interests of the US Department of Defense, which "has nothing to do with the study of bird migration."

"Notably, the Western media and the so-called experts from Russia who are engaged in research funded by foreign grants have been very skeptical about the global biological risks of this project. They claimed that such research did not have ‘a dual nature’ and was ‘absolutely safe.’ They insisted that the methods used by Ukrainian scientists and their foreign colleagues are common practice for ornithologists all around the world," Kirillov added.