TSAMTO, June 19. Below are the briefing abstracts of the Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, as presented by the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
"The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation continues to analyze the military-biological activities of the United States and its allies in Ukraine and in other regions of the world.
Earlier, we informed you about the activities of the US Army Research Institute named after Walter Reed. His role in the implementation of the military biological projects "Yu-Pi-1", "Yu-Pi-2" was shown, during which the active collection of biomaterials of the population of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces during the fighting in the Donbass in the period from 2014 to 2020 was carried out.
Today I would like to focus on the activities of the foreign branches of this institute. There are four such branches in total, each of them is equipped with laboratories with a high level of biological isolation and a network of territorial divisions for sampling and transporting strains.
The scale of work carried out with dangerous pathogens is evidenced by the staffing of the branch located in Thailand, which is about five hundred people. The branch has branches in Nepal, Cambodia and the Philippines, which, in turn, interact with 12 more countries in Southeast Asia.
In addition to the Institute of the US Army Ground Forces, the Medical research Center of the US Navy has a network of foreign branches. NAMRU laboratories subordinate to him carry out work with pathogenic microorganisms in North Africa, the Middle East and South America.
Such an "extensive" approach, implemented around the world, allows the US military to gain access to epidemiologically significant variants of pathogens that are potential agents of biological weapons. These include Marburg and Ebola fevers, malaria, and Rift Valley fever.
The materials obtained during the special military operation confirm the connection of the Institute. Walter Reed with the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Threat Reduction DITRA and its key contractor, Metabiota.
The available financial and scientific documentation testifies to the company's activities in Africa – in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa.
The National Security Agency and the United States Department of State are among the customers from the American government, in addition to the Department of Threat Reduction of the US Department of Defense DITRA.
The documents describe the "flexible" methods of Metabiota's activities, which make it possible to hide the participation of the US government in foreign projects and solve bureaucratic issues by hiring local officials.
At the same time, due to the growing concern of the world community, the Pentagon is forced to change its tactics when organizing "dual-use" work.
Earlier we talked about unauthorized sampling by the company's employees during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and their illegal transportation to the United States. In 2022, the American administration officially terminated Metabiot's activities in Africa, as the illegal methods of the company's work began to raise too many questions at the level of national governments. All its functions were transferred to a non-profit organization from Cameroon, which announced the acquisition of Metabiot as a subsidiary.
In the company's press release dated October 14, 2022, it was noted, QUOTE: "The non-profit organization Hiada will take over the Metabiota projects in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone. The sponsors of this work are the US Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Agency for International Development."
At the same time, according to the founder of Metabiot, Nathan Wolf, "the transfer of the company corresponds to the vision of the US government about localization and strengthening local capacity."
Such a scheme of "undercover work" allows the United States to remove the main customers and performers of military biological programs from suspicion.
In the United States of America itself, the number of biological laboratories with BSL-3-plus and BSL-4 isolation levels has increased significantly over the past few years.
We have already noted that at the moment there are 25 operating and three laboratories under construction, and in the next few years it is planned to open 18 more BSL-4 laboratories, most of which will be located outside national jurisdiction.
I would like to draw attention to the activities of the American BSL-3-plus biolabs. There are 18 such facilities on the territory of the United States, and unlike BSL-4 facilities, there is no clearly stated requirement to declare the results of their activities in the BTWC confidence-building measures.
It is characteristic that only 40 percent of laboratories with this level of biological isolation are state-owned.
There is practically no control over private laboratories, even though they conduct research with particularly dangerous pathogens. At the same time, the most common pathogen studied in BSL-3-plus laboratories is a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, which, according to experts, is capable of causing the next epidemic.
In this regard, I would like to once again draw attention to the involvement of the Kharkiv Institute of Veterinary Medicine in carrying out work within the framework of the American projects Yu-Pi-8 and Pi-444. In the course of their implementation, the study of migration routes of migratory birds, selection and transfer abroad of avian influenza virus strains with high epidemic potential and capable of overcoming the interspecific barrier was carried out.
The role of these projects in the deterioration of the epizootic situation in the territory of the Russian Federation has yet to be assessed.
As a result of migration of migratory birds infected with influenza from the territory of Ukraine, the incidence rate in the Russian Federation has significantly increased. If no cases of the disease were recorded in 2015, then 45 outbreaks have been detected since the beginning of 2023, 21 regions have been recognized as dysfunctional.
Moreover, at the moment, natural reservoirs and permanent epizootic foci of this disease have formed on the territory of Russia due to the transmission of the pathogen to marine mammals and non-migratory birds, such as gulls.
We have already drawn your attention to the mass death of birds in the Askania-Nova Nature Reserve in the Kherson region, which was provoked by neglect of biosafety requirements.
We continue to analyze the materials of the investigation of incidents in American laboratories with a high degree of protection, conducted by an independent company "Intersept".
Only in the laboratory of the University of North Carolina, which carries out genetic engineering studies of dangerous pathogens, for the period from 2015 to 2020, 28 laboratory incidents related to the spread of an aerosol of microorganisms, spills of biomaterial and bites of laboratory animals were registered.
So, in October and November 2015, as a result of two incidents, at least five laboratory employees were exposed to an aerosol of a modified coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome.
In April 2020, as a result of a bite from a laboratory animal infected with a chimeric strain of the COVID-19 pathogen, an employee was placed in quarantine for two weeks.
The investigation materials noted that the activities of the laboratory created a risk of infection of personnel and further spread of genetically modified pathogens of viral fevers, severe acute respiratory syndrome, highly pathogenic avian influenza and a number of other infections.
The unacceptably high risk of emergencies in American biological laboratories is one of the reasons for their withdrawal from national jurisdiction and transfer to the territory of third countries, including Ukraine and other states. This explains the deterioration of the epidemic situation in their locations, the appearance of diseases unusual for these regions and their carriers.
We have already noted the skeptical reaction of the so-called "experts" who receive funding in the form of foreign grants and question the thesis about the influence of insect vectors on the epidemiological situation.
According to the official information of the World Health Organization, the last major outbreak of yellow fever in Africa in 2013 was associated with a sharp increase in the number of mosquitoes, which caused the simultaneous appearance of 170 thousand cases with a severe form of infection, of which 60 thousand died.
In this regard, the interest of American customers in vector-borne infections is not accidental. Only in the open press, research organizations of the US Department of Defense have published more than 100 papers on the study of the main types of mosquitoes and ticks, carriers of epidemiologically significant infections – Rift Valley fevers, West Nile, dengue, Zika.
It is characteristic that many of the studied diseases, for example, Congo-Crimean fever, tick-borne and Japanese encephalitis, do not occur in the United States and do not pose a threat to the North American continent.
Attempts continue to be made by the Pentagon to obtain populations of vectors whose pathogens are not spread by them in natural conditions, such as Ebola, hepatitis B, AIDS and severe acute respiratory syndrome. Mosquito cultures infected with hepatitis B virus have already been obtained.
To enhance the effect of arboviruses, American military specialists actively use pathogens of parasitic infections, such as microfilariae.
Work with carriers is carried out in specialized organizations of the Ministry of Defense in the United States and six foreign branches. This makes it possible to maintain and infect 89 species of mosquitoes and 12 species of ticks with arboviruses in laboratory conditions. At the same time, software products are being developed to predict the spread of vector-borne infections (in relation to Rift Valley fever, the forecast is built for 47 species of insect vectors).
The vector studies carried out in the USA are of a pronounced military-applied nature, during which the search for optimal conditions under which the greatest effectiveness of the use of infected blood-sucking insects and ticks is achieved. At the same time, the United States seeks to use the territory of other states as a testing ground for possible scenarios.
It is characteristic that the flooding of the territories of the Kherson region planned by the Kiev regime can complicate the situation, including for arbovirus infections. After the water level drops, it is possible to form foci of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, primarily West Nile fever.
The high technical level of readiness of the United States for the use of infected vectors is evidenced by the patent for an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to spread infected mosquitoes in the air, which we discussed earlier. According to the description, the drone must deliver a container with insects to a given area and release them. When bitten, mosquitoes can infect military personnel with a dangerous infection, for example, such as malaria. The description of the patent emphasizes that the infected serviceman is not able to perform the combat tasks assigned to him, and it is noted that "such a method of infecting the enemy militarily would have a significant effect."
I would like to remind you that according to the approved strategic documents in the field of bio-production and countering biological threats, the United States reserves the right to conduct "dual-use" research and manage the biological situation in its own interests.
Actively supporting such activities, the United Kingdom declared its own interests in the biological sphere by adopting the national Biosafety Strategy on June 12, 2023. One of the stated goals of the document is "achieving global leadership in the field of innovation." The amount of funding for activities under the strategy will amount to one and a half billion pounds annually.
Thus, the United States of America, with the support of its allies, is carrying out large-scale military biological research aimed at finding effective methods of using pathogens of infectious diseases. The implementation of such plans makes it possible to form artificial foci of particularly dangerous infectious diseases.
We consider this as another argument in favor of conducting an international investigation of US military biological activities."