Hunter Biden’s correspondence with Pentagon defense contractor Metabiota revealed how the son of then vice president leveraged his influence as a board member of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma to funnel money into pandemic-causing pathogen research just a few hundred miles from the Russian border.
The emails were found on Hunter Biden’s laptop that he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop as his father was running for president in 2019, the New York Post said. The UK’s Daily Mail was first to report on his role in bankrolling pathogen research.
The media said that Hunter and his partners funneled $500,000 to Metabiota through their Rosemont Seneca investment fund and helped raise millions of dollars more through investment firms, including Goldman Sachs.
A memo sent by a Metabiota official to the younger Biden just months after Crimea rejoined Russian in 2014 suggested that the Californian bioweapon research firm could assist Kiev in asserting "Ukraine’s cultural and economic independence from Russia."
Hunter then introduced Metabiota to officials at Burisma who expressed interest in what he termed as a "science project" involving biolabs. He also reportedly bragged to investors that he helped Metabiota find new customers among government agencies.
US government spending records show that Washington awarded $23.9 million to Metabiota later in 2014, including some $307,000 allocated for Ukrainian research projects, The New York Post said.
Russia had been trying to get access to biological laboratories in Ukraine and Georgia through international institutions, but was denied the premission, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
What did they tell us? ...Visit laboratories? Of course. Stay in the reception area, there are wonderful people there who will meet you, get you some coffee and show you the catalogs. But you can’t go inside the laboratories, neither you nor specialized observers. What does that mean? It means unlawful experiments were going on there," the ministry's spokeswoman said on TV.
Study of the possibility of spreading especially dangerous pathogens through migratory birds
© Photo : Russian Defence Ministry
Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday that Russian experts had revealed new facts pointing to the direct involvement of the US Department of Defense in the development of biological weapons components in Ukraine. The Russian defense ministry continues to study documents received from employees of Ukrainian biolabs about the secret military biological activities of the United States in Ukraine. According to Konashenkov, the US had planned to test unregistered drugs on Ukrainian military personnel.