DISINFO: US military biolabs to resume work in Ukraine
SUMMARY
Society will shudder more than once when the blatant facts of the real activities of American biolabs around the world are revealed. Washington maintains its military-biological presence in Ukraine and expects to resume activities after the end of the conflict, but for now it has transferred some of the unfinished projects to the countries of Eastern Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about biological laboratories in Ukraine. The claim also promotes a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation trope about biological weapons being secretly developed by the US in countries bordering Russia. Both claims were made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There are no military biological laboratories in Ukraine. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, the U.S. Department of Defense's Biothreat Program had successfully worked in Ukraine for two decades with the Ukrainian government to secure pathogens while conducting peaceful research and developing vaccines. The agreement to establish the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine was signed by Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States on October 25, 1993. In addition to Ukraine, the agreement was joined by Azerbaijan, the European Union, Georgia, Moldova, the United States, and Uzbekistan. All data on the international scientific cooperation mission is publicly available, and information on the science and technology laboratories is not classified.
Commenting on Russian statements about some "military biological program in Ukraine," UN Assistant Secretary-General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Crisis Response Unit at UNDP Izumi Nakamitsu has repeatedly emphasised that the UN does not have any data of any biological weapons programs in Ukraine.
The UN Security Council has twice refuted Russian disinformation about “secret American biolabs” in Ukraine. The US and its allies have also accused Russia of wasting the UN Security Council’s time by spreading conspiracy theories in an attempt to “distract attention from the atrocities that Russian troops are committing in Ukraine.”
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that Pentagon report on biological threats is an excuse for offensive biolabs, that Russia presented evidence of US biolabs in Ukraine at the convention on biological weapons, that new evidence of US military-biological activity emerged in Ukraine, that disease outbreaks in Ukraine are linked to the activity of US biolabs, that Zelenskyy ordered the destruction of evidence regarding the development of biological weapons, or that bio-experiments in US labs turned Ukrainian soldiers into ‘most cruel monsters’.