Washington is working on a “universal” genetically engineered bioweapon aimed to result in massive damage to its enemies, a Russian parliamentary commission probing U.S. biolabs in Ukraine recently concluded.
“The United States aims to develop a universal genetically engineered biological weapon capable of infecting not only people, but animals as well as agricultural crops. Its use involves, among other things, the goal of inflicting large-scale and irreparable economic damage on the enemy,” the commission asserted in its report.
“The covert and targeted use of such a weapon in anticipation of a positive inevitable direct military confrontation could create a significant advantage for US forces over the adversary, even against those who possess other types of weapons of mass destruction,” the study elaborated.
“The possession of such highly effective biological weapons creates, in the view of the US military, the real prerequisites to change the nature of contemporary armed conflicts.”
Moreover, the report admitted that modern-day scientific progress in the areas of genetic engineering, biotechnology, toxicology, and synthetic biology have provided researchers with more opportunities to develop novel biological weapon components that could escape detection by traditional diagnostic tools.
“The situation is aggravated by the fact that the production of such biological agents can easily be dispersed over various industrial enterprises, disguising them as products used for peaceful purposes,” the same report pointed out.
That being said, the report also highlighted that the emergence of novel and more advanced biological weapon components does not preclude the risks posed by traditional bioweapons, including “smallpox, anthrax, tularemia and the plague, all of which can be modified to enhance their deadly properties. Added to this is the objective difficulty in determining the true cause of outbreaks of infectious diseases, which can be both natural and artificial.”
Claiming that worldwide U.S. bioweapons programs pose the largest and most evident risk to Russia’s biological security, the report continued:
The US military biological program has not only not been curtailed, but has acquired a large-scale character in recent years with a focus on offensive actions, carried out under the guise of activities which are permitted under the Biological Weapons Convention, as well as anti-terrorism projects. The United States is supporting and developing the ability to produce biological weapons and, if necessary, to use them. However, there have been changes in Washington’s strategic view with regard to the role of bioweapons in geopolitical competition, and the means of its possible use.
Based on the findings from the same parliamentary commission, the presence of pathogens of relatively unknown natural infections with a long incubation period, high mortality rate, and symptoms similar to other common diseases distinguishes traditional bioweapons programs from the modern-day ones the Pentagon has been conducting, according to the report.
These aforementioned pathogens could then hinder investigations to identify the source of these biological weapons, the report posited.
Among the largest risks,the commission cautioned, is the military biological research on the decoded human genome, which could “radically” alter the geopolitical and military situation in the world.
Relying on evidence supplied by the Russian military on U.S. military biological activities in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, and countries in Africa and Asia, the commission singled out the “key role” of overseas facilities in enforcing the U.S.-led bioweapons programs.
“Washington is systematically creating an extensive network of biological laboratories beyond its national jurisdiction, allowing it to carry out a wide range of military-oriented biological research under the guise of medical biological projects,” the report claimed.
“This factually results in the ‘military-biological occupation’ of the entire planet, which opens to the US unrestricted access to information on the state of the health, microbiological and biological infrastructure of host countries.”
“The lack of international control over such work provides the United States the opportunity to act in other countries without being restrained by moral and legal norms and humanistic principles, and to ignore the demands of the public,” the report added.
Besides, the United States concealed these programs from public view by shifting them to civilian ministries and private companies, the report claimed, highlighting the focus of bioweapon studies on pathogens which infect human beings using insects, mammals, and wild birds.
“The results of this research provided American military biologists the ability to not only simulate the scenarios of the spread of epidemics in a particular region, but the opportunity to control them. They are also working out the ‘biological routes’ of the likely injection of atypical diseases through third countries to a territory of interest,” the study contended.
“The analysis of strategic US documents in the field of defense and security indicates that the activities in biolaboratories under their control are focused on providing potential military advantages to the US military and the waging of military operations using pathogenic microorganisms with desired properties created using synthetic biology,” says the report.
On April 11, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops of the Russian armed forces, claimed that the United States was producing such biological weapon components just outside Russia’s borders.
“According to the results of the analysis of documentation and the interview of eyewitnesses, we have no doubt that the United States, under the guise of ensuring global biosafety, conducted dual-use research, including the creation of biological weapons components in the immediate vicinity of the Russian borders,” Kirillov announced, before indicating that such research had been conducted at U.S. biological facilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (LPR and DPR) as well as the Kherson region.
Furthermore, Russia investigated more than 2,000 documents of various plans authenticating military biological projects in Ukraine, Kirillov elaborated. “I would like to note that none of the facts announced by the Russian Defense Ministry were rejected by the United States, no one, including Western countries, had doubts about the authenticity of the published documents,” he emphasized.
Additionally, Kirillov declared that Russia’s Defense Ministry would probe into 240 pathogens of dangerous diseases discovered in four laboratories in Ukraine, including cholera and anthrax.
“We actually worked in four laboratories. In those laboratories that we found, about 240 pathogenic substances of various types were found, we are studying them and continue to study them. Most of them concern anthrax, cholera,” Kirillov acknowledged.
In February 2022, Russia found 30 U.S.-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine. Moscow maintained that Washington spent over $200 million on the biological laboratories in Ukraine as part of the U.S. military biological program.
Although in June of last year the United States admitted to funding 46 laboratories in Ukraine, the Biden administration and Ukraine both rebuffed claims that these laboratories were for military purposes.
Russia lambasted the United States and Ukraine for breaching the Biological Weapons Convention, which materialized in 1972 and was signed by most countries.
However, ignoring its violations, the United States has begun building biological laboratories in Ukraine and is planning to train Ukrainian biologists as well, Kirillov said on April 7.
“Despite the forced pause pertaining to the Russian special military operation, activities under the program have now been resumed. The main tasks at this stage are to continue the construction of biological laboratories in Ukraine, as well as expand the format for training Ukrainian biologists,” he said.
Also, Kirillov revealed that Russia’s Ministry of Defense thinks that the U.S. Department of Energy, along with the Pentagon, is the main organizer of and direct participant in military biological programs.
The official alluded to a statement by the U.S. Department of Energy claiming that the Covid-19 pandemic could have happened due to an accidental leak of the Covid-19 virus from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
“A legitimate question arises — what does the US Department of Energy have to do with combating biological threats and implementing projects that have signs of dual use?” Kirillov questioned.
In 2023 alone, the U.S. Department of Energy earmarked $105 million for research under the Bio-Preparedness Research Virtual Environment Project, meant to investigate the epidemic spread of diseases, Kirillov stated.
“We are adding to the list of persons involved in the biological research of the Pentagon. Among them is Eliot J. Pearlman, head of the NGO ‘International HIV/AIDS and TB Institute’ in Kyiv, who was directly involved in the creation of a laboratory base for the implementation of military biological research on the territory of Ukraine,” Kirillov divulged, naming participants of the alleged U.S. biological research efforts.
Kirillov also named Greg Glass, a professor in the Department of Geography and the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, who was studying the spread of the pathogen tularemia in Ukraine, as one of those who were complicit in implementing the UP-8 project (Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever and ortho hantavirus in Ukraine).
Another participant, professor Andrew Pekosz, served as one of the leading consultants in the UP-2 project (application of geoinformation systems, remote monitoring, and laboratory diagnostics for the detection of tularemia and anthrax diseases in humans and animals in Ukraine), Kirillov maintained.
The Russian official stated that many participants in the military biological programs have left Ukraine, and the United States is on the lookout for them to prevent information leaks.
Kirillov also claimed that Moscow has information that since 2017, the United States had been developing potentially dangerous mRNA vaccines.
“According to available information, the development of vaccines of this type [mRNA vaccines] has been funded by the US state budget since 2017, and by the time commercially available drugs appeared, it was clear that they could cause the development of concomitant diseases and serious complications.”
