MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. The head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control, Konstantin Gavrilov, has described as stunning the reaction of the United States, the United Kingdom and Ukraine to reports about the US-run biological laboratories in Ukraine.
Gavrilov recalled that a meeting of the Forum for Security Cooperation was held to focus on the Russian special operation in Ukraine, nuclear and biological security, humanitarian issues and the illegal transfer of small arms to Ukraine.
The Russian delegation brought up the issue of US biological laboratories in Ukraine, he said.
"Do you know what’s amazing? It’s the reaction of US, UK and Ukrainian representatives after our speech," the head of the Russian delegation said on the Rossiya-24 news channel on Wednesday.
Gavrilov said that the representatives of the US and the UK said that the activity of biological labs does not violate international regulations, while the Ukrainian delegation did not acknowledge their existence. The head of the Russian delegation added that in more than 30 years he had never encountered anything like that in his diplomatic practice.
"Judging by our sessions, they (OSCE representatives - TASS) have done everything to evade the issue (of the US-run biological laboratories in Ukraine - TASS) in their speeches, emphasizing that Russia is conducting a war, aggression, twisting the facts and everything like that. Both in the media and here. Nothing new. But they are avoiding this topic in every possible way. We raised it proactively and generated a flurry of reactions," Gavrilov said.
"You know, some sort of confusion. And when you quote [US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria] Nuland as saying that they would do their best to prevent biological research material from falling into the hands of the Russian forces, they simply do not hear," he said.
On Tuesday, Nuland said that there are biological research facilities in Ukraine. Washington was doing its utmost to prevent "any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces."
Earlier, Igor Kirillov, who heads the Russian army’s radiation, chemical and biological protection force, reported that a network of over 30 biological labs was formed on Ukrainian soil on the orders of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) of the US Department of Defense. According to him, on February 24, they were all instructed by the Ukrainian Health Ministry to completely destroy biological agents located in the laboratories.