Ukraine told to destroy pathogens
WHO urges action amid risk of ‘spills’ from labs; Russia demands answers from US
The World Health Organization has advised Ukraine to destroy high-threat pathogens stored in the country’s labs to prevent “any potential spills”, the UN agency said on March 10.
In an emailed response, the WHO told Reuters that it has “strongly recommended the Ministry of Health in Ukraine and other responsible bodies” to destroy those disease-causing pathogens or toxins, but provided no specifics about their kinds.
Ukraine has public health laboratories working on disease research, and received support from the United States, the European Union and the WHO, according to Reuters.
With no reference to bio-warfare, the WHO said it encourages all parties to cooperate in “the safe and secure disposal of any pathogens they come across, and to reach out for technical assistance as needed”.
On March 11, the United Nations Security Council discussed, at Russia’s request, the US’ alleged military biological research in Ukraine.
Russia said there is a network of biological laboratories in Ukraine working on behalf of the US Department of Defense that forms part of America’s biological weapons program.
Washington has dismissed the accusation as “laughable”. But US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on March 8 acknowledged that “Ukraine has biological research facilities”.
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, said about 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine were involved in amplifying pathogenic features of deadly diseases.
“The work has been funded and directly supervised by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at the (US) Department of Defense, including on behalf of the National Center for Medical Intelligence at the Department of Defense,” Nebenzia said.
“Some documents came into possession of the Russian Defense Ministry,” he told the Security Council.
The Russian envoy warned that materials from these laboratories could be stolen and used for terrorist purposes.
He also accused Kyiv of “hastily covering its tracks” by scrapping biological programs at the request of the West.
The US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, labeled Russia’s calling of the session as a “false flag effort” to lay the groundwork for Moscow’s own use of biological or chemical weapons in Ukraine, but she failed to provide evidence of her claim.
Under a 2005 agreement, the Pentagon has reportedly assisted several Ukrainian public health laboratories with improving the security of dangerous pathogens and technology used to research.
According to a report by The Rio Times based on a Twitter message posted by independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, the US Embassy in Ukraine on Feb 26 removed all documents about Pentagon-financed biolabs in Ukraine from its website, other than a document showing that the Pentagon is funding two new biolabs in Kyiv and Odesa.
One of the old labs in Ukraine financed by the US is located in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, according to the report. In Jan 2016, at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers died there from a flu-like virus in two days while another 200 soldiers were hospitalized, according to the report, which adds that the Ukrainian government has not provided detailed information on the soldiers who died.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson said on March 6 that evidence of a US-financed military biological program developed in Ukraine was uncovered during Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, according to TASS news agency.
“In the course of the special military operation, evidence of the Kyiv regime’s hasty measures to conceal any traces of the military biological program, financed by the US Department of Defense in Ukraine, has been revealed,” said the spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov.
Employees of Ukrainian bio laboratories had provided information that especially hazardous pathogens, including plague, anthrax, cholera, tularemia and other lethal diseases infecting agents, had been urgently destroyed following the beginning of Russia’s operation in Ukraine on Feb 24, she said.
Yet the seized document showed that experiments with samples of bat coronavirus were carried out in the biological laboratories inside Ukraine.
“We will share the results of the analysis of the documents we have received in the near future. Some of them, in particular the Ukrainian health ministry’s instruction to destroy pathogens and certificates of completion from the Kharkov and Poltava bio laboratories, we are publishing right now,” Konashenkov added.
The Russian Foreign Ministry on March 9 demanded US government explain the purposes of US-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine.
“We remember for how many years and with what bloody results the United States searched for various types of chemical, biological, bacteriological weapons and so on all over the world, actually occupying lands and killing people,” the ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a briefing.