KRASNODAR, July 6. /TASS/. Russia’s sanitary watchdog has taken measures to mitigate the risk of exacerbating the epidemic situation in the country’s south amid US military-biological activities in Ukraine, the watchdog’s chief Anna Popova said at a meeting on the security situation in the Southern Federal District, chaired by Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev.

"Anna Popova reported on the risks related to the US move to establish biological laboratories in Ukraine and clarified measures to reduce the risk of complicating the epidemic situation in the Southern Federal District," a Security Council spokesperson told reporters.

Head of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA) Veronika Skvortsova, in turn, "briefed the meeting’s participants on efforts to accumulate forces and stockpile reserves so as to be prepared for a possible aggravation of the sanitary and epidemic situation in the Southern Federal District, and also noted that FMBA bodies were ready to work in emergency situations." In addition, she touched upon issues pertaining to "treating wounded military servicemen and injured civilians in the new regions," the statement added.

Officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Emergencies Ministry, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Health Ministry, the National Guard and the Defense Ministry, as well as the governors of a number of the Southern Federal District’s regions, also made reports at the meeting.