MOSCOW (TSAT) - Russia on Monday claimed that the US established a network of more than 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine, local media said.


The network formed on the request of the US Department of Defense’s Threat Reduction Agency, TASS news agency quoted the chief of Russia’s radiation, chemical, and biological protection forces, Igor Kirillov said.

"The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly drawn attention to the military-biological programs the Pentagon is implementing in the post-Soviet space. In Ukraine, a network of more than 30 biological laboratories was created. Some of them are research laboratories and others, sanitary-epidemiological ones," he said.

Taking part in the projects is the Black and Veatch company, affiliated with the Department of Defense, it's claimed. 

"Firstly, the biological situation is monitored in areas where, the Pentagon says, the deployment of NATO’s military contingents is likely. Secondly, there is the collection and transportation to the United States of samples of highly pathogenic microorganisms. And thirdly, research into likely agents of biological weapons, specific for the given region, which has natural froci and can be transmitted to humans," Kirillov claimed.

He added that the US Defense Department also launched a $11.8 million project for the diagnosis, surveillance, and prevention of zoonotic diseases in the Ukrainian army in 2021.

"In 2020-2021 the German Defense Ministry conducted research in Ukraine into the pathogens of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis, meningitis, and hantaviruses under a Ukrainian-German initiative for biological safety on the European Union’s perimeter borders," Kirillov said.

On Sunday, the Russian media cited its country's officials who said that Ukraine was very close to building the nuclear bomb. The allegation Kyiv was denied.

- Third round of peace talks 

Meanwhile, the third round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials started on Monday in Belarus after a pause of a few days.

"The third round of the Russian-Ukrainian talks just started in Belarus," said the Russian embassy in Belarus said.
Russia’s chief delegate, presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky said before the talks started that all three blocks of issues will be discussed, among them an internal political settlement, international humanitarian aspects, and military settlement issues.

The Russian delegation will have another try to discuss the work of humanitarian corridors, none of which has started operating in full so far, according to Medinsky, the agency reported.