MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. Russia believes that the US should provide exhaustive information on biolabs in Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
"Of course, we believe that the United States must provide comprehensive information on these laboratories," he said.
Moscow has been discussing this "problem for quite a long time after data was published on the biolabs" located near the Russian borders. "We are speaking about this increasingly often, practically every day," Peskov went on to say. "This program [on biolabs] that the United States is developing is well known. It is not transparent. This program invites many questions, and not only here, but also in other countries of the world," Peskov stressed.
When asked to comment on statements that the Azovstal plant in Ukraine could house a biolab, Peskov said that he didn’t have such information. "On the other hand, we will soon find out everything," he summed up.
Biolabs issue
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov earlier said that Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine produced evidence the regime in Kiev had urgently eliminated traces of a US Department of Defense-funded military biological program in Ukraine. Ukrainian laboratories’ staffers testified that on February 24 pathogens of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases were urgently eliminated.
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, while testifying before the US Senate’s foreign relations committee on March 9, acknowledged that in Ukraine there were some facilities conducting clandestine biological research and Washington was keen to prevent Russian forces from gaining control of these facilities. She said the US Department of State was "quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces." The Russian Defense Ministry said that in fact it was a confirmation of the Pentagon’s involvement in military-biological programs in Ukraine.