MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/. The United States is set to create a controlled instrument of investigating infectious disease outbreaks that will actually turn into non-transparent and biased probes, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Tuesday.
"The White House’s official statements about the US readiness to move towards creating a mechanism of control over biological weapons in practice result in the rejection of any verification initiatives and the attempts to place international instruments of checks under control," he said.
"It is obvious that Washington is set to create its own controlled instrument for investigating outbreaks of infectious diseases and other bio-incidents. The US dominant role in the activity of the [UN] Secretary General’s Mechanism will allow Western countries to attribute blame at their own discretion as was the case in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," the Russian general said.
The practice of the OPCW’s investigations in Syria in 2018 when basic evidence was based on the testimony of the White Helmets sponsored by the West suggests that such probes will also fail to be transparent and unbiased in the future, he went on to say.
As an example, the Russian general cited the American nonprofit organization RAND known for its studies of artificial intelligence use for planning large-scale biological attacks.
"On February 6, 2024, this organization published a report titled: ‘Attributing Biological Weapons Use.’ The document calls into question the efficiency and prestige of the UN Secretary General’s Mechanism in its current form and describes the leading role that the US Department of Defense could play in investigating such incidents. The authors point out that the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs that maintains the Mechanism’s operational readiness does not enjoy international prestige. At the same time, they stress that the United States can provide its own materials of investigation to the UN Secretary General, even if it does not participate in it directly," Kirillov explained.