Russia has long accused Washington of conducting prohibited research abroad under the cover of epidemic prevention
A US intelligence release of new information about American-funded biolabs in Ukraine confirms Russia’s suspicions that the research had a military dimension, the Russian Ministry of Defense has said.
Last week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a statement regarding a network of 120 laboratories in 30 countries, including Ukraine. She said the disclosure was intended to set the record straight after what she described as a deliberate cover-up by previous administrations.
Gabbard confirmed that some of the facilities were involved in gain-of-function research, a controversial field aimed at making pathogens more dangerous, ostensibly to help develop vaccines before similar mutations arise naturally. Russia and other countries have long argued that such studies can serve as a cover for military programs banned under the Biological Weapons Convention.
“We consider the published documents to be the latest proof that the Kiev regime is violating its obligations under the Convention,” General Aleksey Rtishchev, head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, said during a briefing on Friday.
“All the accusations that the Russian Federation is spreading disinformation and engaging in hybrid warfare to deceive the international community are absolutely false,” he added.
Rtishchev was responding to Western officials and media outlets that have dismissed previous Russian claims on the issue as “propaganda.” Moscow says a complex network of public and private entities was used to obscure the aims of laboratory work in Ukraine.
The Russian briefing came hours after another disclosure by Gabbard, this one focused on the possible role of gain-of-function research in the origins of Covid-19. She accused Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as a White House adviser on the pandemic under two US administrations, of steering investigations toward the natural-origin theory, allegedly to protect himself.
Fauci directed US funding of research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology while serving as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022.
