Original article (in Serbian) was published on 21/03/2022
The claims of Russian officials that 70 people died of tuberculosis due to biological laboratories in Ukraine in 2018, and that America was financing those laboratories, were recently shared by Informer, but without featuring additional explanations from the other side. In accordance with the pro-Russian narrative, this tabloid has already concluded in the headline that “America was preparing a biological war against Russia”. There have been biological research facilities in Ukraine for years, but there is no evidence to claim that they were used to develop biological weapons. Otherwise, dangerous viruses and pathogens are being studied around the world.
In the text, published in the print edition on March 18, Informer referred to the statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the head of the Department for Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection in Russia, Igor Kirillov. He said that the laboratories of the Ministry of Defense in Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv and Kharkiv received 32 million dollars from the USA to study six types of viruses, including coronavirus, as well as bacteria that cause plague, brucellosis and leptospirosis.
“The Pentagon has been studying the causes of very dangerous viruses in Ukraine – the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis, hantavirus”, the Informer states.
Referring to Kirillov, the tabloid concludes that “these pathogens have natural foci in Ukraine and Russia”, and that their use as weapons “can be disguised as a natural outbreak of disease”.
Informer points out as “especially shocking” that during 2018, “at least 70 people in Donbas died from drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is suspected to have been intentionally released or accidentally left one of the laboratories”.
Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of death in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that in 2020, about 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis. Although it occurs in all parts of the world, the countries most affected by tuberculosis are Southeast Asia, Africa and the Western Pacific. Ukraine has been among the most affected European countries for years when it comes to drug-resistant tuberculosis infection (multidrug-resistant tuberculosis).
That is why the World Health Organization has been cooperating with Ukraine for years, in order to achieve the goals set in the WHO Global Strategy, which envisage the end of tuberculosis by 2035.
In the category of countries with record-high numbers of people infected with resistant tuberculosis, in addition to Ukraine, there are also countries in its vicinity, such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Uzbekistan.
It is no secret that the United States and Ukraine are cooperating within the Program for Reducing the Biological Threat, whose goal is to prevent the development and spread of dangerous diseases. Contrary to the claims of Russian officials, the US Department of Defense and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine concluded an agreement in 2005 which agreed on cooperation in preventing the spread of technology, pathogens and expertise, which could be used for the development of biological weapons.
The website of the US Embassy in Ukraine explains that through the Biological Threat Reduction Program, the US Department of Defense is cooperating with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (intentional, accidental or naturally caused) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases.
“The priorities of the Biological Threat Reduction Program in Ukraine are to consolidate pathogens and toxins that can be worrying and to provide conditions for Ukraine to recognize and report epidemics caused by dangerous pathogens before they become threats to security or stability”.
Also, in 2016, Ukraine joined a multinational working group whose goal is to improve security and disease surveillance networks that function well in Eastern Europe. The European region, in addition to Ukraine, includes Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
The US Department of Defense document, from March 11, 2022, also explains that public health institutions and biological laboratories around the world study pathogens in order to confirm the spread of the disease and improve early detection and diagnostics. These institutions use special pathogens because they are endemic to their country or at risk of spreading from other countries.
By the way, through the Program for Reducing the Biological Threat in Ukraine, the United States has invested over 200 million dollars since 2005 to provide support to 46 Ukrainian laboratories and health institutions. They add that this program “has improved biosafety, safety and supervision for human and animal health”, as well as that it is being carried out in cooperation with world health institutions.
There are many laboratories in the world that provide different levels of biological safety, and depending on that, pathogens of various diseases are studied in them.
“Levels of biological safety are used to define the protective measures that need to be met in the laboratory, to protect laboratory staff, the environment and the public”.
The most dangerous pathogens are studied in laboratories that provide level – 4 biosafety, and they are, as the magazine “The Conversation” wrote last year, located in as many as 23 countries. In Europe, as it is stated, there are 25 laboratories that provide level 4, in North America and Asia there are 14 and 13 such laboratories. Australia has four, and Africa has three.
Ukraine does not have biosafety level 4 laboratories. However, in this country, there are laboratories of lower security levels where appropriate research is conducted.
According to these data, Ukraine is not the only country where pathogens of various diseases are examined. Such research is therefore being conducted in other countries as well, and that is nothing new.
Invasion of conspiracy theories about biological weapons in Ukraine
In its text, Informer unquestionably conveyed only the claims of the Russian side, implying that biological weapons were developed in Ukraine.
The tabloid also wrote about this topic on March 10, when it announced that “the Americans admitted that they made biological weapons”, referring to the statement of the US Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland.
However, Nuland did not “admit” that any biological weapons were made in Ukraine.
Answering the question of the senator of Florida, Mark Rubio, before Congress, Nuland said that “Ukraine has facilities for biological research”, and that they are worried that the Russian forces “want to take control of them”. Informer interpreted this as a “confession of the Americans”, and the website Fake news tragac also wrote about this controversial claim.
Recently, the editor of Politika, Bojan Bilbija, stated that a special virus was being created that would “affect” only Russians because there is a part of DNA that is identical to all Russians – the so-called “ethnic DNA”.
Geneticist Jelena Blagojevic explained to Raskrikavanje that Bilbija’s claims are not scientifically based.
Claims that the United States is secretly conducting research in biological laboratories in Ukraine are not new. The fact-checking website Snopes reminds us that they appeared as part of Russian propaganda in 2018. Two years later, the Security Service of Ukraine called on politicians to stop spreading fake claims about foreign military biological laboratories in Ukraine.
Moscow has been referring to documents for days, claiming that Ukraine has laboratories for biological weapons, conducted with the support of the US Ministry of Defense. Washington and Kyiv deny these claims.
The US Department of Defense announced on March 10 that “there are five research laboratories in Kyiv. Their work is focused on diagnostics, therapy, treatments, prevention and vaccines, and they are not used for military purposes, as the Russians and Chinese claim”.
The State Department declared the day before that “Russia is making up excuses, with the intention of justifying its own horrible actions in Ukraine”.