ANTALYA, March 10. /TASS/. Moscow will demand an explanation of the US biological activity in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday following talks with Ukrainian and Turkish top diplomats, Dmitry Kuleba and Mevlut Cavusoglu.
"We are very concerned over the data that the Pentagon has set up several dozen military biological laboratories in Ukraine as part of its program <…> violating the relevant convention that prohibits biological and toxin weapons. We have sent an official request on how this can be explained. And we will demand an answer," the top diplomat noted.
At the same time, Lavrov pointed out that the experiments were not peaceful and were aimed at creating "ethnically oriented" biological weapons. "I have no data confirming that they have already used their weapons, however, I have no doubt regarding the fact that these were absolutely not peaceful experiments, they were aimed at creating biological weapons, which were, so to speak, ethnically oriented," Lavrov said.
Earlier, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that in the course of Russia’s special military operation evidence was obtained the regime in Kiev had urgently eliminated all traces of the US Department of Defense-funded military biological program in Ukraine. He said Ukrainian laboratories’ staffers testified that on February 24 a number of extremely dangerous pathogens of plague, anthrax, cholera and other deadly diseases were urgently disposed of.
Later, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland confirmed the existence of biological research facilities in Ukraine.