MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/. The issue of US-run biolaboratories in Ukraine remains open, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told an online briefing on Friday.
"This issue is not closed. Our Defense Ministry continues to provide the international community with information that raises very serious questions and, in fact, enables one to draw the conclusion that in Ukraine the Pentagon was engaged in developing <...> what are considered biological weapons under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention [BTWC]," the Russian foreign minister emphasized.
According to Lavrov, it is no accident that the Americans "scattered these labs across various regions" as this was a means of stymieing the initiative, long promoted by Russia, to create a mechanism for verifying all countries’ compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). In the top diplomat’s view, in addition to Washington’s aim of creating risks for specific countries, the US authorities were also motived by the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") principle, in which they were unwilling to carry out dangerous experiments on their home turf.
The Russian foreign minister said that the US has claimed that the research is purely for civilian purposes. "Well, if that’s the case, then kindly conduct this civilian research on your own territory," Lavrov retorted.
In mid-April, a Russian parliamentary commission presented the final report on its investigation into the activities of US-run biolabs in Ukraine. According to the document, the Pentagon’s military biological program expanded into a large-scale endeavor in recent years and was being implemented under the guise of anti-terrorist projects and as ostensibly BWC-compliant activities. The parliamentary commission also pointed out that Pentagon specialists were involved in the operations of all US-controlled laboratories. Moreover, their work is classified as secret and government agencies in the host countries where labs are located enjoy access only to secondary-level research.