In an interview with the Izvestia newspaper on March 24, Vladimir Tarabrin, Russia’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Russia’s envoy to the Netherlands, claimed that the United States continues to operate 30 biolabs on the territory of Ukraine as part of an illegal military-biological program.
The number of American laboratories on Ukrainian territory has been “well-known for a long time,” Tarabrin said.
The diplomat recalled that the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, had alleged in March 2022 that 30 such biolabs existed.
“Our armed forces discovered documents confirming the extensive military biological program deployed by the US and NATO countries on the territory of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics,” he said.
The Kyiv government allegedly began destroying dangerous pathogens in the laboratories and suspending research on February 24, 2022, the day Russia started its military operation against Ukraine, but “in 2023 the implementation of those programs resumed, only their name was changed,” Tarabrin claimed.
When questioned if the number of the U.S. biolabs in Ukraine still stands at 30, the ambassador said, “According to our data, yes.”
“It’s not surprising, therefore, that over the past 20 years, Washington has been blocking all Russian initiatives aimed at strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) regime and creating an effective mechanism for verifying compliance with its provisions by all participating countries,” Tarabrin said.
Over the past two years, Moscow has repeatedly raised concerns over a supposed network of secretive U.S.-funded laboratories in Ukraine, publishing troves of documents captured from Kyiv, which it claims are related to the operations of those facilities.
Last April, Kirillov said Russia had “no doubt that the US, under the guise of ensuring global biosecurity, conducted dual-use research, including the creation of biological weapons components, in close proximity to Russian borders.”
For its part, the U.S. government has confirmed the existence of the biolabs in Ukraine, but insisted that they are entirely legal and not meant for military use, despite mostly being funded via the Pentagon. Washington has dismissed Moscow’s claims of the labs being used to work on bio-weapons as a “Russian disinformation campaign.”
Furthermore, Kirillov said a year ago that the U.S. biolab program in Ukraine, which was previously known as “joint biological research,” was rebranded as “biological control research” so that it could continue operating.
Besides, Tarabin stated that Ukraine has repeatedly used chemical weapons provided by the United States against the Russian military.
“Over the course of the special military operation, we have recorded cases of Ukraine’s Armed Forces deploying chemical weapons manufactured in the US,” Tarabrin said, saying that the deliveries form part of a well-established and illegal scheme of deploying non-lethal chemical weapons to Kyiv.
He underscored that the use of toxic chemicals by Ukraine has become systematic, as Western backing permits Kyiv to breach international law with impunity. According to Tarabrin, the Ukrainian military uses various types of home-made ammunition, grenades, and containers with unknown substances against Russian forces.
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), an arms-control treaty administered by the OPCW, an intergovernmental organization headquartered in The Hague, was adopted in January 1993 and came into force four years later. As of August 2022, 193 states had signed the treaty.
Ukraine has ratified the document and accepted all its obligations.
The convention forbids all member states from producing, acquiring, and stockpiling chemical weapons, as well as transferring them directly or indirectly. The signatories are also banned from using such weapons.
Tarabin noted that Moscow is drawing the attention of international organizations, particularly the OPCW, to the violations.
“I think the US and its dependents can only be stopped by maximum transparency, the identification of specific facts that show that they directly supply, or facilitate the supply, of these substances to Ukraine in violation of the CWC,” he said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has repeatedly slammed Kyiv for provocations with the use of chemical weapons, including acts on the territory of Ukraine. Last April, the ministry claimed that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) was plotting such a provocation with the use of “hazardous chemicals” in the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine. Kyiv has denied the accusations.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on March 25 that the lethal terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall in Russia last week was a clear effort to intimidate Russia and serves the interests of the Ukrainian government.
Speaking with law enforcement and regional officials, Putin argued the atrocity fit Kyiv’s modus operandi.
“This atrocity may be only a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014, using the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime as their hand,” Putin said. “And the Nazis, as is well known, never hesitated to use the most dirty and inhumane means to achieve their goals.”
A terrorist group calling itself Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) has claimed responsibility for the concert venue massacre. The United States and the EU quickly maintained that Ukraine had nothing to do with the attack, and that ISIS-K, a group allegedly operating in Afghanistan and Central Asia, was the sole culprit.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on March 25 that there is no evidence the Ukrainian government was involved in the Crocus City massacre.
“ISIS bears the sole responsibility here, the sole responsibility,” Jean-Pierre insisted. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin understands that. We shared that with their government. And so there is no evidence, absolutely no evidence, that Ukraine was involved there.”
Jean-Pierre specifically alluded to the March 7 public advisory, warning Americans in Russia to avoid concert venues owing to a threat of attacks by “extremists.” She said this was communicated to the Russian government as well, but she did say how.
Thus far, Russian security services have detained a dozen suspects, including the four alleged perpetrators, who were intercepted as they drove toward the border with Ukraine. They were identified as Tajik nationals. Speaking on March 25, Putin described them as “radical Islamists.”
Another question that needs to be addressed is why the terrorists headed for Ukraine after conducting the attack, Putin said.
“Who was waiting for them there? It is clear that those who support the Kyiv regime do not want to be accomplices and sponsors of terrorism. But a lot of questions remain,” the Russian leader added.
While Russia knows who pulled the trigger, the president said, Moscow still needs to find who gave the order, making it clear that Kyiv was his primary suspect.
