MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/. The Pentagon is rapidly expanding its military-biological presence in Africa after Russia put an end to US programs in the liberated territories in Ukraine, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said.

"Since we managed to curb the implementation of military-biological programs in Ukraine’s liberated territories, the Pentagon was forced to transfer research projects it failed to complete in Ukraine to other countries. Currently, Africa is in the zone of the United States’ increased interests," he said.

According to Kirillov, research programs in Africa - in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and South Africa - are sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) and the Department of State. However, third-party contractors (more than 20 companies, as well as Big Pharma firms) are engaged to implement these programs to hide the real goals of this research.

He drew attention to the fact that Metabiota’s activity in Africa was wound up after "too many questions about its methods arose from national governments." Thus, in his words, Ebola virus samples were illegally exported by the company’s employees in the interests of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).

Moreover, the illegal military-biological activities involve former US and British servicemen, employees of disease control and prevention centers in Africa, and employees of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

According to Kirillov, documents that are available to the Russian side indicate that the United States’ military-biological presence on the African continent is rapidly expanding.

"Thus, in October 2023, employees of the the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases conducted a large-scale study of hantaviruses in bats in natural foci in Kenya. A year prior, the US military and biologists studied the effects of anti-malaria substances on the local population," he said.

This January, in his words, officials from the Pentagon, the Departments of State and Health met with the top executives of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss prospects for the development of the continent’s laboratory network. Apart from that, the construction of a laboratory and a training center has begun in Ethiopia with DTRA’s financial backing.

Kirillov warned African partners against military-biological cooperation with the United States. "As evidence from practice shows, such cooperation ends up in the loss of national sovereignty in the area of biosecurity and a deterioration of the disease situation. Examples of this are such infections as yellow fever, monkeypox, and Rift Valley fever, an outburst of which was registered in Cairo where a US naval military-biological laboratory was located," he said, adding that as many as 170,000 people caught yellow fever and 60,000 of them died in 2013 alone.