MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. The Russian Investigative Committee is looking into ten US citizens and some officials of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in connection with their involvement in the creation of biological weapons on Ukrainian territory, Chief of Russia's Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin told TASS in an interview.
According to him, the ministry continues to gather and document evidence of Ukraine's violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. "At present, more than 10 US citizens, as well as a number of Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials, are being checked for involvement in double-purpose biological programs," Bastrykin said.
He explained that the main source of evidence to this day remains data from the Russian Defense Ministry obtained during the special military operation, as well as the results of operational and investigative activities.
Last July, Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, presented a report, according to which a network of more than 30 biolaboratories, both research and sanitary and epidemiological ones, had been created on the Ukrainian territory. According to the report, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) ordered the execution of this work. Per the Defense Ministry, the activity was carried out in three main directions: monitoring of the biological situation, selection and transfer of strains and biomaterials, including those obtained from servicemen, as well as research of potential bioweapons agents specific to the region. The authors of the Russian Defense Ministry report said that under the pretext of testing treatment and prevention of coronavirus infection, several thousand serum samples from patients, "primarily of Slavic ethnic origin," were taken from Ukraine to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the US.