Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
WASHINGTON, SANA-The US authorities contradict themselves in remarks regarding the work of US biological labs in Ukraine, RT website quoted Antonov as saying.
The ambassador commented on the remarks of John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator at the US National Security Council in the White House John Kirby, who said that the United States worked on pandemic prevention and did not develop any biological weapons within the framework of biological research in Ukraine.
“The Americans do contradict themselves. If such a program was purely peaceful, then why were the works so promptly curtailed? Why are these issues handled by the military, but not the civilian specialists?” the Russian embassy’s press service quoted Antonov as saying.
“The answer is obvious: Washington had and has something to hide. This, by the way, was confirmed by J. Kirby himself, according to whom the projects were closed, and the laboratories were deactivated strictly before the special military operation started. In other words, the US did everything possible to ensure that the results of its research did not fall into the hands of the Russian military,” the Russian diplomat continued.
He went on to say that the Russian Defense Ministry “has repeatedly pointed to the signs of the United States implementing dual-purpose programs.”
“Moreover, the most controversial experiments are conducted outside the national territory. I will give just one example: since 2019, Washington has regarded Ukraine as a platform for experiments related to HIV infection. The target groups were made of the most vulnerable categories of the population with high risks of infection,” Antonov said. “The materials at the disposal of our Defense Ministry prove the Pentagon’s focus on creating bioweapons components.”
“As one would expect, now the Americans are actively relocating the unfinished projects from Ukraine to the countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In order to divert attention, they shift the functions of the “customer” to civilian structures – the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Energy, the Agency for International Development. They obviously hope that it will help them avoid criticism and deflect the blow from the Pentagon,” he continued.
“However, the US administration fails to suppress public discussion. In the United States itself, various investigations have been initiated with regard to federal bioprojects, including on the gain-of-function research, and side effects of vaccination,” the head of the Russian diplomatic mission added. “No matter how Washington tries to dodge, sooner or later it will have to answer questions that were raised by the Russian Federation. One should remember: any lie has an expiration date.”
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov earlier said the special military operation in Ukraine produced evidence the Kiev regime was urgently eliminating traces of a US Department of Defense-funded military biological program in Ukraine. He said that according to staffers of Ukrainian biolaboratories a number of extremely dangerous pathogens, such as those causing plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other lethal diseases were urgently destroyed on February 24.
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, while testifying before the US Senate’s foreign relations committee on March 9, acknowledged that in Ukraine there were some facilities conducting clandestine biological research and Washington was keen to prevent Russian forces from gaining control of these facilities. She said the US Department of State was “quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces.” The Russian Defense Ministry said that in fact it was a confirmation of the Pentagon’s involvement in military biological programs in Ukraine.
Manar Salameh/ Ruaa al-Jazaeri
