MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. The US violates the sovereignty of other countries when it opens biolabs on their territory, Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s sanitary watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said on Rossiya-24 television on Wednesday.

"The appearance of such biological laboratories always restricts biological sovereignty. <... > According to available open data, neither citizens nor officials of the countries where they are located have access to the results of the work or the work process," she said.

According to the official, her colleagues in Africa are now questioning whether they should cooperate with the United States in the field of biological safety.

"Our colleagues in Africa understand this very well. Faced with their questions going unanswered, with access into these labs being restricted for researchers of this or that country, they, of course, wonder why they need such cooperation. It can hardly be called a partnership," Popova said.

Russia has on several occasions called attention to Washington’s military biological activity across the CIS and Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following a recent visit to Uzbekistan that such activity by the US poses a direct threat to biological security, public health and the environment. The parliament set up a commission in March 2022 to investigate the circumstances surrounding US labs in Ukraine. The investigation was born after Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said that during the special military operation in Ukraine, Russian forces unearthed evidence pointing to an emergency cleanup by the Kiev regime of traces of a military biological program, carried out in Ukraine and bankrolled by the US Defense Department. According to Konashenkov, staff from these Pentagon-run Ukrainian-based labs revealed the emergency disposal of particularly dangerous pathogens on February 24, namely, the plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases.