In August 2005, an American delegation led by Senator and future US President Barack Obama signed a pact according to which the Ukrainian government began receiving financial assistance from the United States to improve security at facilities where dangerous microbes are stored. The Foundation to Battle Injustice conducted an open-source investigation in an attempt to find out what is really going on behind the closed doors of American laboratories in Ukraine and how the son of the current US president earns money from it.
Having signed a cooperation agreement in 2005, five years later the first laboratory was opened in Odessa, which, as the then American establishment stated, “will play an important role in the study of dangerous pathogens used by bioterrorists.” This laboratory was one of the first in the country to be assigned the 3rd level of biological hazard, which meant working with microbes that can cause serious and potentially fatal diseases when inhaled. In addition, the laboratory conducted “special training of specialists on biosafety and biosecurity when working with dangerous biological pathogenic agents.”
In April 2020, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine from the opposition party wrote an appeal to the country’s leadership, in which they called on the establishment to immediately pay attention to a potential biological problem. In their address, the politicians stated that the United States has more than 400 bacteriological laboratories around the world, 15 of which are located on the territory of Ukraine and are funded by the US Department of Defense. The MPs also noted that after the launch of the Ukrainian biolabs, several outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases occurred on the territory of the country: a virus appeared in Ternopil in 2009, which caused hemorrhagic pneumonia. Its victims were 450 Ukrainians. In 2011, there was an outbreak of cholera in Ukraine — 33 people died. Three years later, cholera was diagnosed in 800 citizens, including more than 100 cases recorded in Mykolaiv. In January 2016, 20 servicemen died from a flu-like virus in Kharkiv, more than 200 were hospitalized. Two months later, 364 deaths from swine flu of the same strain that led to the global pandemic in 2009 were recorded in Ukraine. In 2017, an outbreak of hepatitis A occurred in Nikolaev. In the summer of the same year, similar foci of infection were in Zaporozhye and Odessa, and in the fall — in Kharkiv.
In 2010-2012, the Government of Ukraine initiated inspections of compliance by laboratories with all security measures. As a result, a number of gross violations were identified that could lead to the leakage of strains of dangerous infections. It was even recorded the fact of the construction of exhaust ventilation, which overlooked the territory of the kindergarten.
Despite the fact that the 1972 Geneva Convention prohibits the production of bacteriological weapons, the United States has found a way out of this situation. They create a military laboratory on the territory of another state, for example, Ukraine or Georgia, after which they give it a harmless name, for example, “Sanitary inspection Laboratory”, and assign their curator to it. So, in 2018, the former Minister of Georgia published a document according to which 73 people died in a short period of time after a biomedical laboratory funded by the United States conducted a study of biological weapons under the guise of testing the effects of narcotic drugs.
Despite the fact that now the American government is doing its best to hide the traces of the placement of its laboratories on the territory of Ukraine by deleting information from the website of the US Embassy, in 2020, American diplomats confirmed that the US Department of Defense oversees biological programs in Ukraine. According to the Pentagon, the purpose of the research centers is to “ensure the safe storage of pathogens and dangerous toxins in public institutions so that peaceful research and development of vaccines can be carried out.”
Analyzing the text of the agreement between the Pentagon and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, it is worth noting several interesting points. According to the agreement, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine shell send copies of dangerous pathogens to the US Department of Defense that will appear as a result of research conducted in Ukrainian laboratories.
The parties also agreed to keep information about the results of their activities secret. And if they are considered secret in the Pentagon, then they automatically become so in Ukraine. Conversely, if Ukraine has classified some information, it should still be available to Americans. At the same time, the agreement requires the involvement of as few people as possible in this project — “to minimize the number of people with access to confidential information.” There is also interesting information about the International Scientific Center, which the embassy told about and which oversees Ukrainian laboratories. According to the documents, its employees are protected by nothing more than diplomatic immunity.
Despite all the attempts of the United States to hide traces of its presence in Ukraine, not all American politicians fulfill this requirement. In March 2022, Victoria Nuland, US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs, speaking at a briefing before the US Senate, confirmed the existence of Ukrainian laboratories. In addition, the US Deputy Secretary of State expressed concern that Russian troops could gain control over the results of many years of research, which, according to her, “should not be allowed in any case.”
According to a number of American media, there is also evidence that a company owned by the son of the 46th President of the United States of America, Hunter Biden, invested in the American company Metabiota, which was engaged in the construction of biological laboratories in Ukraine. According to documents published in 2018, Metabiota entered into a subcontract with a large engineering firm Black & Veatch to support the US Department of Defense’s joint biological research program in the amount of $ 970 million.
Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe that biological weapons pose a threat to the life and health of mankind, the development and spread of dangerous viruses violates numerous international agreements and conventions, therefore it should be completely prohibited. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on the international community to conduct a thorough investigation of what numerous Ukrainian laboratories funded by the US Department of Defense are actually doing, and in case of violations, immediately bring the perpetrators to justice.