Russian MoD: Kiev Regime Seriously Considered Using Bioweapons Against Russia, Donbass
15:06 GMT 30.03.2022 (Updated: 16:46 GMT 30.03.2022)
© AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes
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The Russian military has spent weeks shedding light on research into deadly pathogens being conducted in Ukrainian laboratories under the direction of the Pentagon and with US funding. Washington initially denied the MoD's reporting as "Russian disinformation", but officials and media have since corroborated many of its assertions.
Ukrainian authorities seriously considered the possibility of using biological weapons against civilians in the Donbass and Russia, and the military will hold a special briefing on the matter, Russia's Ministry of Defence spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, has said.
"The facts which have been unearthed demonstrate that the Kiev regime seriously considered the possibility of using biological weapons against civilians in the Donbass and in the Russian Federation," Konashenkov said in a briefing on Wednesday.
The spokesman said the Russian military is continuing its analysis of documents received from employees of Ukraine-based biological laboratories, including the secret military biological activities being conducted in the country by the US.
"As a result of the analysis of new materials by experts from the Russian Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops, specific officials who were involved in the creation of components of biological weapons have been named. These include the heads of departments and employees at the US Defense Department, as well as its main contractor companies. As ongoing journalistic investigations in the western press show, these campaigns were directly connected to Hunter Biden, the son of the US president," Konashenkov said.
The MoD spokesman did not elaborate on when the new information would be made public. The Russian military has spent the past month slowly pulling back the curtain on the extent of US-funded research into dangerous pathogens in Ukraine-based labs. Last week, the MoD cited documents which implicated an investment firm connected to Hunter Biden in the financing of the military biological programme in Ukraine.
Western media initially rejected the Russian reports, with British newspaper, The Daily Mail, accusing the MoD of "ramping up a wild propaganda campaign" on bioweapons labs. However, analysis by the newspaper based on emails garnered from the laptop which Biden Jr left behind in a Delaware computer repair shop soon confirmed that the president's son "DID (sic) help secure millions in funding for [a] US contractor in Ukraine specialising in deadly pathogen research," and that the allegations made by Russia "may well be true".
A report by the New York Post, the same newspaper that first broke the Biden laptop story in the autumn of 2020, corroborated the Daily Mail's reporting on Hunter and the Ukrainian biolabs.
Pro-White House media has continued to defend the president amid mounting questions related to his family's activities in Ukraine, with the Washington Post releasing a "fact check" explainer suggesting that the labs alluded to were "biological research facilities focused on better detecting, diagnosing and monitoring infectious-disease outbreaks," not "bioweapons labs". Furthermore, the Post suggested that "random emails can be easily misinterpreted without additional reporting," and claimed, without evidence, that reports by its competitors were false.
Other outlets and media organisations, including the Daily Beast, NPR and Media Matters for America, have continued to dismiss the Russian MoD releases and western outlets' reporting as "crazy" "conspiracy theories," notwithstanding Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland's remarks in a Senate hearing earlier this month confirming that "biological research facilities" were operating in Ukraine, and that the US was "quite concerned" that "Russian troops...may be seeking to gain control of" the facilities and the "research materials" contained therein.
In a presentation on 6 March, the MoD published a letter by Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko dated 24 February (the same day the Russian military operation in Ukraine began) ordering the destruction of deadly pathogens scattered across Ukraine's network of biolabs.
