Gen. Aleksey Rtishchev, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops publicly responded yesterday to U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—the U.S. funded biolabs in Ukraine had a military dimension. “We consider the published documents to be the latest proof that the Kiev regime is violating its obligations under the Convention,” he said. “All the accusations that the Russian Federation is spreading disinformation and engaging in hybrid warfare to deceive the international community are absolutely false.”
Rtishchev noted that the documents identified laboratories in Kharkiv, Denpropetrovsk, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Ternopil, Cherniviv and Odessa. The labs were also engaged in studies of pathogens causing plague, anthrax, tularemia, Marburg, and Ebola fever, none of which were endemic in the region. He pointed in particular to the Mechnikov Odessa Anti-Plague Research Institute, which was designated on the American map as a “biological weapons storage site,” which the Pentagon is now rebuilding.
“During the special military operation, we obtained additional documents confirming that the focus of the work being conducted was inconsistent with Ukraine’s current healthcare challenges, the primary ones being of socially significant diseases.. The priority was to study the devastating properties of potential biological weapons agents, as well as infectious agents, aimed at undermining the nation’s economy,” he said.
