Recently, the Russian disclosure that the U.S. Department of Defense is funding biological laboratories in Ukraine has received a great deal of attention from the international community. Not only Ukraine, but the United States has funded undisclosed biological laboratories in several countries around the world. What is the intent? What is the truth? Is there a risk of leakage of dangerous pathogens? All of these questions have raised concerns in the international community.

Biological laboratories are not transparent

The U.S. Department of Defense said in a March 11 fact sheet that the U.S. Biological Threat Reduction Program is part of the country's Threat Reduction Partnership Program. Since signing an agreement with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health in 2005, it has invested $200 million in Ukraine to support 46 laboratories, health facilities and diagnostic sites.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said March 15 that in addition to the more than 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine, "hundreds of such laboratories" are supported by the United States. Publicly available data show that 336 laboratories in about 30 countries receive funding from the U.S. Biological Threat Reduction Program.

What exactly are these DoD-funded biolabs working on? It is highly classified. While U.S. officials have called the questions "disinformation" and "conspiracy theories," there have been multiple calls for the United States to comply with the Biological Weapons Convention and clarify international concerns. In the face of Russian documents, pictures and objects found in Ukraine, the U.S. side should release detailed information, fully explain its biological research at home and abroad, and accept multilateral verification.

Alastair Hay, emeritus professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, said, "The United States has been supporting various laboratories in Ukraine through a post-Cold War program. As I understand it, these laboratories are usually involved in disease surveillance."

"It is unclear why the U.S. needs to support this work and why it is not doing so under the guidance of the World Health Organization." Hay said.

Dangerous Pathogens Have Hidden Dangers

Although the United States claims it funds offshore biological laboratories to "deter biological threats," these laboratories store and handle dangerous pathogens and toxins. In Ukraine, for example, a 2012 National Academy of Sciences report said that Ukrainian facilities have been upgraded to handle some of the world's most dangerous pathogens, including Bacillus anthracis.

Some media outlets have said that the U.S. investment in biological laboratories in Ukraine is intended to create mechanisms for the covert spread of deadly pathogens, raising new concerns about pathogen leaks.

Why would the U.S. fund a biology lab in Ukraine, where Europe is not rich and biomedical research is not prominent?

Jonathan Asconas, an assistant professor of political science at Catholic University of America, believes that the United States has increased its activities in parts of the former Soviet Union, with Ukraine being particularly attractive - it has a large number of skilled workers in fields such as science, technology and engineering, and a government that is friendly to the United States.

Robert Pope, head of the U.S. Department of Defense's Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, said in an interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Web site that Ukrainian laboratories do not currently have the capability to create biological weapons. But he also said that some laboratories may hold dangerous pathogens left behind by the former Soviet Union, and that if these facilities are damaged by the conflict, the risk of pathogen leakage will increase.

Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tursi Gabbard has been accused of "treason" for questioning Ukraine's biological labs. She tweeted that there are more than 25 U.S.-funded biology labs in Ukraine and that there should be an immediate cease-fire around these labs because they could spread dangerous pathogens.

The World Health Organization has recently asked Ukraine to destroy "high threat pathogens" in its public health laboratories to prevent "any possible leakage" of diseases among the population.

U.S. Press Cover-up

In the face of widespread international concern and fears about U.S. funding of biological laboratories outside the country, the U.S. mainstream media, which has always touted "freedom of the press," has been tight-lipped, repeating the U.S. government's claims without any form of corroboration.

"This is a case where the U.S. government has been lying, has launched a disinformation campaign to cover up what it is doing, and no one in the press seems interested in finding out the truth about it." said Glenn Greenwald, an independent U.S. journalist who worked for the British newspaper The Guardian.

Greenwald wrote on 9 September that the testimony of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Newland raises important questions related to the Ukraine lab that need to be answered.

In the article, Greenwald questions what exactly is in the Ukrainian biology lab that makes it so worrisome and dangerous? Is Ukraine, which is not a major advanced country in biological research, receiving assistance from other countries in developing these dangerous substances? Is U.S. assistance really limited to "working with the Ukrainian side to prevent those 'research materials' from falling into the hands of the Russian military," as Newland claims, or has U.S. assistance extended to the construction and development of these "biological research facilities"? facilities"? If these biological laboratories are only designed to research cancer therapies or security measures against pathogens, why does Newland think they are linked to a biological weapons program?

According to Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, the U.S. and Ukraine signed a contract in 2005, yet 17 years later, "the Pentagon has yet to finish removing test tubes from Soviet-era freezers. "How do they actually work? How heavy are these biochemical weapons? Do we lack the capacity to transport them? When does the Pentagon intend to complete this important work?"

"These seem like obvious questions, but (almost) no (U.S.) journalists have asked these questions," Carlson said, "What exactly are these labs doing with our money and in our name?"

Asconas argued that the U.S. "government and media actors are not leveling with the American people about the complex realities, but rather engaging in a shameful and botched cover-up under the guise of 'fighting misinformation.'"

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)