[The parting shot by outgoing DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard has set off a firestorm in the US and Western media. Most of the media have labeled it “Russian propaganda."]( https://nypost.com/2026/06/12/us-news/outgoing-dni-tulsi-gabbard-releases-declassified-info-on-120-foreign-biolabs/) Some are denying the story completely. Others, who realize that “denial” would be a pretty wild claim at this point are insisting that all these labs are “benign” or beneficial to public health. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued their own statement, saying, “The laboratory facilities involved in the relevant international technical assistance programs are diagnostic, scientific, or reference laboratories within the public health system, veterinary medicine, or other scientific institutions. The narrative of alleged ‘laboratories for the development of biological weapons’ is not new—Russia has used it in its propaganda for many years. At the same time, all Russian accusations have been repeatedly debunked at the international level.,” they claim.
This was also the line picked up by the Western media “Their labs are not now and were never secret, and do zero questionable work,” said Jonathan Segal, an alleged “expert” on biological weapons. “ Cooperation with the US started as a highly publicized effort to convert former Soviet research facilities that may have been connected to the USSR’s covert BW program and involved Russian participation until a decade ago,” Segal added.
Senator Mitt Romney issue a tweet calling Gabbard’s expose “treasonous.” “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda,” tweeted Romney. “Her treasonous lies may well cost lives” he claimed.
Gabbard was quick to reply, “Mitt Romney, you have called Gabbard a ‘treasonous liar’ for stating the fact that ‘there are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world’ and therefore must be secured in order to prevent new pandemics,” she wrote. “Bizarrely, you claim that securing these labs (or even calling for securing these labs) is treasonous and will lead to a loss of life, when the exact opposite is obviously true. The spread of pathogens is what will cause the loss of life, not the prevention of such spread.” She said he should apologize or else submit his resignation as a US Senator.
While Gabbard is making no claims that these labs are in fact developing biological weapons, a suspicion which has been publicly circulated by Russian authorities almost since the discovery of the labs at the beginning of the special military operation. she is condemning the blatant attempt by the Biden Administration to deny the extent of these labs, arguing that the very existence of such labs working on dangerous pathogens in a war zone could itself be a major hazard.
