MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. Russian senators and lower house members expected US experts to pour over the Russian parliamentary probe’s report on US biolaboratories in Ukraine, so the fact that there has been no official reaction indicates that Washington has no rebuttal, Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev, who co-chaired the inquiry, has said.
"We had expected to see our opponents, US specialists, go over it with a fine-tooth comb. We have seen nothing of the sort. This does not mean that it went unnoticed: while we were making inquiries, the Americans repeatedly tried to discredit our work. When the report appeared, there followed no professional response, which means that the Americans have no rebuttal. We hit the nail on the head," Kosachev said during the upper house’s "Government Hour" question time featuring the head of the consumer rights watchdog chief Anna Popova, who had participated in investigating US biolabs in Ukraine.
Kosachev stated that the time that had elapsed since the presentation of the commission's final report "has only confirmed the concerns and the obvious threat posed by US biolaboratories near Russia and, in general, the Americans’ activities in this field."
Kosachev noted that a few months ago, the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center, which interacts with the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, had resumed its activities in Kiev.
"Moreover, our Defense Ministry has evidence that a possible provocation involving biological weapons or their components is being plotted on Ukrainian territory in order to eventually blame it on Russia. We are aware of these plans," Kosachev said.
"We intend to raise the issue of control over the Americans’ actions further within the framework of the working group on strengthening the regime of the Biological Weapons Convention, which is to meet in session in Geneva on December 4-8. We will make it clear that there should be a special protocol to the Convention to establish a clear compliance mechanism," Kosachev stated.
After a year of inquiries, the parliamentary probe into the US biolaboratories in Ukraine submitted a report to both houses of the Russian parliament in April. Both the State Duma and the Federation Council approved the findings. The final document summarized all information about US military and biological programs in Ukraine and the facts and circumstances behind how the United States carried out biological programs around the world. The Commission came to the unequivocal conclusion that US biological programs had an obvious dual purpose and were intended to be used, among other things, for military objectives.