MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research, which Georgia opened owing to US assistance, could seriously endanger Russia, said Anna Popova, the nation’s sanitary watchdog chief, on Wednesday.

"Firstly, it is very close. Secondly, it is located in a country that, in my opinion, has lost its biological and epidemiological sovereignty. This involves very, very high risks for us," Popova said in an interview on the NTV television channel.

The Richard Lugar Center opened in the village of Alekseyevka, near Tbilisi's airport in 2011 under a US government program. The center conducts research into biological threats. Georgia's former Minister of State Security Igor Giorgadze said at the end of 2018 that he had documents at his disposal confirming the center's involvement in dangerous experiments. Tbilisi dismissed these charges as absurd. Moscow stated that it would request documents concerning the laboratory's activity from the United States.