U.S., Ukraine debunk Russian lies about bio-labs - State Department

The U.S. Department of State said this in a statement following the Biological Weapons Convention Article V Formal Consultative Meeting, called by Russia, held in Geneva on September 9, Ukrinform reports.

"The United States delegation, led by Special Representative Kenneth D. Ward, effectively exposed Russia’s disinformation tactics and dispelled Russia’s spurious allegations seeking to malign peaceful U.S. cooperation with Ukraine," the report said.

According to the report, in the presence of delegations from 89 countries, the United States and Ukraine presented "a thorough, in-depth series of presentations that strongly refuted Russia’s absurd and false claims of U.S. biological weapons development and bio-labs in Ukraine." Technical experts from the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations unambiguously explained their cooperation and U.S. assistance related to public health facilities, biosafety, biosecurity, and disease surveillance as part of the broader U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

The United States and Ukraine also highlighted how such activities are consistent with—and further support—the provisions of the Biological Weapons Convention, particularly Article X, which promotes cooperation and assistance by States Parties. States Parties affirmed and supported the United States in this regard, with over 35 of the 42 countries that spoke noting the importance of such work.

The United States takes seriously its obligations under the BWC and therefore participated fully, transparently, and with integrity in the Article V process. The same cannot be said for the Russian delegation, who distributed a proposed “joint statement” to select delegations with its conclusions from the meeting before the United States and Ukraine even began their presentations.

Earlier reports said that the Russian regime continues to cite the alleged facts of the work of U.S. military bio-labs in Ukraine as one of the reasons behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Russian government and Kremlin propagandists claim that these mythical institutions are allegedly working on the creation of biological weapons and are even trying to use the migration of birds to infect the population of the Russian Federation.

Kyiv, in turn, states that Ukraine strictly adheres to its international obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention and does not produce such weapons alone or in cooperation with other parties.

The permanent representatives of the United States, Albania, France, Ireland, Norway and Great Britain in the UN earlier published a joint statement in which they exposed Moscow's lies regarding the alleged development of "biological weapons" in Ukraine.