There is speculation on social media that Russia is also targeting US-run bio-labs in its military operations in Ukraine. Russia has expressed concern in the past that the United States could develop bioweapons in laboratories outside its own territory. In fact, there are 15 laboratories owned by US companies in Ukraine.
A user’s tweets on the subject caused a stir on Twitter – the user was quickly blocked, but his suspicions were backed up:
In fact, recently an article on the portal MK.ru the end:
There are 15 biological laboratories in Ukraine, owned by US private companies, which have extraterritorial status, ie they do not report to the Ukrainian authorities. They may pose a risk of biological contamination. This is what Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN Biological Weapons Commission said.
It is said that biological warfare agents could also be developed there:
“Private US military biolabs are developing the latest types of biological warfare agents: bacteria and viruses. American biologists then test them on a specific gene pool – plants, animals and humans,” Igor Nikulin told the Army Standard electronic publication.
According to him, in 2014 then-President Barack Obama banned such dangerous experiments from being conducted on US soil. Since then, countries dependent on the US have been chosen as the site for biolaboratories. The “partners” must sign a confidentiality agreement. “Even if something goes wrong, they have no right to share confidential information about the labs’ activities,” the expert said. – In addition, the principle of extraterritoriality applies to these laboratories. All employees have diplomatic passports and these facilities are effectively US territory.
In any case, it cannot be ruled out that dangerous biological substances are being handled there – suspicious outbreaks of disease have already occurred in the past. Examples include hemorrhagic fever, African swine fever, SARS, brucellosis and rabies.
What is dangerous about these laboratories is that they are all private:
“They are essentially contractors for the Pentagon. They enjoy extraterritorial rights and operate under the American flag, but even US President Joe Biden is not fully accountable to private labs. Sometimes they act in the public interest and sometimes in their own interest.”
That the USA has laboratories in Ukraine can also be seen by looking at the Website from the American embassy in Ukraine – even if it says there that the “Biological Threat Reduction Program” is primarily intended to consolidate and “secure” “security-related pathogens and toxins”.
This image shared on Twitter shows the locations of US biolabs in Ukraine:
Based on a map of Russian attacks, many users concluded that the Russian military struck dangerously close to several lab sites:
In fact, Russia has repeatedly expressed suspicion in recent years that the US is developing biological weapons, even jointly with China in October asked the UNto conduct investigations in this regard. It was explicitly pointed out that the USA had more than 200 biolaboratories outside of its national territory, the work of which was not transparently informed. The fact that the US co-funded the massively controversial and dangerous Gain of Function research in the Wuhan laboratory, which may have given rise to the corona virus, certainly did not help in this regard.
Against this background, it does not seem impossible that Russian forces should render the laboratories in Ukraine harmless. However, it is questionable how safe attacks are in these areas if dangerous pathogens are handled there…
