UNITED NATIONS, March 11. /TASS/. A network of about 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine was involved in the amplification of pathogenic features of deadly diseases, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia said on Friday at a session of the UN Security Council, which had been convened at Russia’s request to focus on the US military biological programs in Ukraine.

"Some documents came into possession of the Russian Defense Ministry. They confirm that a network of at least 30 biological laboratories has been set up in Ukraine, which conducted extremely hazardous biological experiments aimed at amplifying the pathogenic characteristics of the plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases with the help of synthetic biology," Nebenzia said.

"The work has been funded and directly supervised by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) at the Department of Defense, including on behalf of the National Center for Medical Intelligence at the Department of Defense," he added.

"Our military learned about the details of the UP-4 project, which was implemented in the laboratories of Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa. Its goal is to study the possibility of spreading especially dangerous infections via migrating birds, including highly pathogenic [avian] influenza H5N1, which mortality rate for humans reaches 50%, as well as Newcastle disease," the Russian ambassador said.

"Another project was considering bats as vectors of potential biological warfare agents," he added.

In addition, the diplomat noted, among the research areas are bacterial and viral pathogens that can pass from bats to humans, namely the plague, leptospirosis, as well as filoviruses and coronaviruses.

"As follows from the project’s documents, the US has funded biological projects in Ukraine intensively," he stated.

"Experiments were carried out to study the transmission of dangerous diseases by ectoparasites - lice and fleas. Even non-specialists understand that such experiments are among the most reckless, as they make it impossible to hold control of the unfolding situation," Nebenzia said.