MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. The media is concerned about the US Bancroft private military company’s biologists carrying out covert activities in the Central African Republic, Deputy Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Major General Alexey Rtishchev said at a briefing.

"A number of publications have expressed concern about the activities of the US Bancroft private military company on the territory of the Central African Republic on behalf of DTRA (the Defense Threat Reduction Agency under the US Department of Defense - TASS)," the defense official said.

He added that the French RFI news outlet linked this activity of the private military company with "an attempt to protect the main coordinator of military-biological projects from public attention."

Rtishchev also said that the Geopolitics online edition published an article on the joint activities of the DTRA and the US non-profit organization RTI International to monitor infectious diseases in Africa, which, according to the publication, "is a component of the Pentagon's broader ‘biological espionage’ initiative."