DISINFO: US biolabs in Ukraine are aimed at reducing Russia's gene pool
SUMMARY
US biolabs in Ukraine are aimed at reducing Russia's gene pool. It has long been known what these Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine were doing. They grew pathogenic microbes to infect humans, everything was done with the Russian gene pool in mind. We know that about 30 Pentagon biolaboratories were dispersed in different cities on Ukrainian territory with different specialisations, but with one goal: to cheaply and angrily destroy the central enemy and its allies.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about biological weapons and dangerous pathogens being secretly developed by the US in the countries bordering Russia. This narrative is a leitmotif in a years-old disinformation campaign conducted by the Kremlin and is currently deployed in an attempt to justify Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Some of the most bizarre and yet enduring Kremlin disinformation narratives have been those accusing the West of running clandestine biological research programmes to wreak havoc around the world. There are no US biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the states cooperating with the US Department of Defence's Biological Threat Reduction Programme (BTRP): the goal of the BTRP is to safeguard global health by preventing and containing the outbreak of infectious diseases and establishing high international standards in biological security.
The US Department of State has stated that "The US does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine, it is in full compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention." Read more about this topic here. In reality, all laboratories located in Ukraine are controlled by the Ukrainian government and don’t carry out military research. In August 2005, the US and Ukrainian governments made an agreement to prevent the spread of dangerous pathogens and relevant expertise and to diminish potential biological risks. Partially, this agreement was aimed at modernising state laboratories in Odesa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and other regions, consisting of upgrading lab equipment and repairs of premises.
The US Embassy in Ukraine previously also addressed the claims about supposed bio-military labs in Ukraine, stating that this is a fabricated accusation in pro-Kremlin propaganda that aims to hinder the ongoing U.S.-Ukrainian partnership to reduce biological threats. The accusations are part of the Kremlin’s broader, long-lasting disinformation campaign to discredit the US in the eyes of Putin’s pro-Western neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that Russia presented evidence of US biolabs in Ukraine at the Convention on biological weapons, that the US develops biological weapons at the border with Russia, that new evidence of US military-biological activity emerged in Ukraine, that disease outbreaks in Ukraine are linked to the activity of US biolabs, that Zelenskyy ordered the destruction of evidence regarding the development of biological weapons, or that bio-experiments in US labs turned Ukrainian soldiers into ‘most cruel monsters’.