Russia blames Ukraine for outbreaks of dangerous diseases

The Russian Ministry of Defense links the outbreak of a number of diseases with the work of biolabs in Ukraine, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commanding officer of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces said.

The damage from highly pathogenic avian influenza exceeded 1.7 billion rubles in 2021. In addition, six million domestic birds were culled. At the same time, in European countries, the losses of the agricultural industry from avian flu amounted to about two billion euros.

Furthermore, the ministry considers it possible that the death of 70 people in the village of Peski of the Donetsk People's Republic could be associated with Ukrainian biological laboratories, Igor Kirillov said. He particularly referred to the outbreak of tuberculosis, which occurred in Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics in 2018. The outbreak of the disease was caused by new multi-drug resistant strains, he stressed.

"During the mass outbreak recorded in the area of the village of Peski, more than 70 cases of the disease were detected. All ended with fatal outcomes," the military official said.

According to Kirillov, this could be either a matter of deliberate infestation, or an accidental leakage of a pathogen from a laboratory located on the territory of Ukraine.

Previously, Russian specialists of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection troops studied documents, which revealed details of a secret project that the United States was implementing in Ukraine.

The documents revealed that US specialists supervised research works to study the transmission of dangerous pathogens from bats to humans. The research had been conducted in a Kharkov laboratory jointly with Georgia's Lugar Center. Joanna Wintrol, the head of the DTRA office at the US Embassy in Kiev acted as one of its curators.

The documents dated from 2015 establish that that the US spent as much as $32 million on the work of military laboratories in Kiev, Odessa, Lvov and Kharkov.

On March 10, an official representative for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that the USA created and funded a network of biolabs in Ukraine to conduct experiments with coronavirus strains.