MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. The US and its allies transported about 16,000 biological samples beyond Ukrainian territory within the framework of its military-biological activities, Russian Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops head Igor Kirillov announced Thursday, adding that such scale of relocation operation suggests a search for the most dangerous biological agent for this particular region.

"The funding of the military biological operation allowed the US and its allies to transport at least 16,000 biological samples beyond the Ukrainian territory. […] Such large-scale screening of the population’s natural immunity was likely carried out in order to find biological agents that are the most dangerous for the population of a particular region," he noted.

According to Kirillov, within the framework of the UP-8 project, blood tests were taken from 4,000 servicemen in Lvov, Kharkov, Odessa and Kiev for antibodies for hantaviruses, while 400 more tested for Congo-Crimean fever virus.

The military official noted that the relocation covered not only tissue and blood serum samples, but also dangerous pathogens and their carriers.

"For instance, over 10,000 samples were relocated to the Lugar Research Center in Georgia. Other recipients included reference laboratories in the UK, the Loeffler Institute in Germany," he said. "All this creates risks of transmission of sensitive genetic information abroad, as well as threat to biological security, not only for Ukraine, but for those regions where these samples were relocated to."

Meanwhile, one of the US’ priorities was researching anthrax pathogen, characterized by high contagiousness and resilience in the environment," Kirillov added.