MOSCOW, August 4. /TASS/. The Labyrinth Ukraine company, a contractor of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was involved in US projects studying African swine fever, Chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Thursday.

"Labyrinth Ukraine took part in the UP-9 and UP-10 projects aimed at studying the spread of African swine fever in Ukraine and eastern European countries," he pointed out.

According to the general, documents seized during Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine prove that since 2019, USAID and its key contractor, the Labyrinth Ukraine company, have been involved in the United States’ military biological program. Kirillov mentioned a letter that the chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ sanitary and epidemiological department had sent to the director of Labyrinth Ukraine, highlighting the Ukrainian military’s readiness to interact with USAID in terms of injecting troops with vaccines, as well as collecting, processing and providing information to the US.

The general emphasized that Russia’s concern about the activities of Ukrainian biolaboratories could be the reason why the United States Agency for International Development had been chosen to coordinate that work. It could be an attempt to shield the Pentagon and avoid accusations of developing biological weapons.

It has been established that Labyrinth Ukraine is a branch of the US-based Labyrinth Global Health company, while its founders are former staff members of the Metabiota company, a key Pentagon contractor in the field of military biological activities. Labyrinth Ukraine participated in the UP-9 and UP-10 projects studying the spread of African swine fever in Ukraine and Eastern European countries. "I would like to point out that as part of the US Department of Defense’s biological threat reduction program, coronaviruses and the monkeypox virus were one of the focuses of research for Labyrinth Global Health," Kirillov said.

He noted that on July 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared the current monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency. So far, monkeypox cases have been recorded in 76 countries, and the number of patients has exceeded 26,000. That said, "we see a clear connection between the Pentagon’s interest in the pathogens of infectious diseases and the fact that their spread benefits US pharmaceutical companies and their sponsors, the leaders of the US Democratic Party," the Russian general emphasized.