Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Russian Ministry of Defense has repeatedly disclosed the information of the United States in Ukraine to set up biological laboratories, pointing out that the United States is engaged in the work of "developing biological weapons components" in Ukraine, reminding the world of vigilance. In this regard, many US officials have acknowledged that the United States and Uzbekistan have cooperated, but they have never clearly explained the disclosed information.
Satellite demystifying beauty in the Ubiological Laboratory. Video source: Haike News
The data also shows that the US Department of Defense funds and controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world, and the large number, unclear motives, and risks related to the leakage of high-risk pathogens have aroused great concern and discussion in the international community.
This article is written by | Gu Xiaoyang, associate professor of the School of Medical Humanities of Capital Medical University, liu yupeng and Zhang Dongxiu, special correspondents of this newspaper in Russia and the United States
This article was edited | Ren Linxian
Russia and the United States accuse each other,
The existence of biological laboratories is an indisputable fact
Since March 6, the Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly released data on the opening of more than 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine by the United States.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, russian information obtained from Ukrainian biological laboratory personnel shows that the United States and its NATO allies are conducting biological weapons research in Ukraine, and the purpose of the UP-4 project is to study the possibility of spreading particularly dangerous infectious diseases through migratory bird migration, including the H5N1 avian influenza virus with high fatality rate; the P-781 project is to consider bats as biological weapons carriers to study pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans, including plague, coronavirus, etc.; UP-2, Studies in the UP-9 and UP-10 projects involved anthrax and African swine fever.
In addition, since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, more than 140 containers containing extracorporeal parasites in bats, as well as a large number of serum samples from Ukraine wholly belonging to Slavic groups, have been transferred from Ukraine abroad.
Russia discloses documents on the us-based biological weapons research in Ukraine. Video source: CCTV News
Since then, the Russian Defense Ministry has released a new batch of data analysis results, saying that the Ukrainian biological laboratory is funded by the "Rosemont Seneca" investment fund led by Hunter Biden, the son of US President Biden, which is related to US military contractors. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the George Soros Foundation, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are all directly involved in the implementation of the project. The Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States is also involved in the project's technical support, which has been involved in nuclear weapons research.
In addition, Ukrainian experts have also conducted water sampling in some large rivers in Ukraine under the guidance of American scientists to determine whether dangerous pathogens including cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis A and E may be transmitted by water routes. From 2019 to 2021, U.S. scientists tested potentially dangerous biological samples on mentally impaired patients at a hospital in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Vasily Prozorov, a former Ukrainian security official, said the laboratory activities in Ukraine posed a potential threat to people in Ukraine and other countries.
Since 2014, the number of infectious disease outbreaks in Ukraine has soared, such as measles, which has long been absent, but tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, have been affected between 2018 and 2019. Coincidentally, the U.S.-led Ukrainian biology laboratory is located in the region with the highest number of infected people.
Russia has also repeatedly accused that such activities of the United States threaten the world, that biological weapons can replicate themselves, are more dangerous than nuclear and chemical weapons, and that once applied, the consequences are difficult to predict. Many of the biological military activities carried out by the United States in Ukraine are contrary to the Biological Weapons Convention.
In the face of the Russian complaint, the United States responded:
Around March 10, the White House issued a statement saying that "the United States operates more than a dozen biological laboratories in Ukraine";
Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Newland said "the United States has biological research facilities in Ukraine";
The State Department said the U.S. side "fully complies with the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention and has not developed or possessed such weapons anywhere";
A Pentagon spokesman bluntly called Russia's allegations "ridiculous" and "ridiculous."
However, as of now, the United States has only acknowledged the existence of its cooperative biological laboratories in Ukraine for the purpose of strengthening public health measures, and claims that the United States and Ukraine have signed an agreement to "never produce or use biological weapons", and have never specifically explained the specific information released by the Russian side.
At the same time, the US side accused Russia of spreading false information and "launching an information war to find a reason to attack Ukraine."
Multinational Biology Laboratory for the United States
Express doubt or protest
Dozens of U.S. biology labs in Ukraine are just the tip of the iceberg. According to public information from the United States, the U.S. Department of Defense controls a total of 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world in the name of "cooperating to reduce biosecurity risks and strengthen global public health", covering Japan, South Korea, Kazakhstan, and even the Middle East, Africa and the former Soviet Union. However, its opaque experimental content, involving high-risk pathogens, has aroused widespread doubt.
A few days ago, a number of non-governmental groups in South Korea held protests, demanding that the US military in South Korea completely close and withdraw the biological laboratories in South Korea. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency, Lee Chang-hee, one of the leaders of the group, said that the U.S. military has conducted as many as 16 biological experiments in South Korea, including the delivery of samples such as Bacillus anthracis to South Korea, in flagrant violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.
On April 5, South Korean civil society groups demonstrated near a U.S. military base in Busan, South Korea, demanding the closure of a biological experiment facility at a U.S. military base in the port of Busan
Recently, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Armenia, Armenians wore gas masks to protest, they put up slogans such as "against biological weapons" and "Armenia is not a place for experiments", opposed the United States to fund biological experiments in Armenia, and demanded that international observers be allowed to enter relevant laboratories for verification.
On April 9, Armenians protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in Armenia against the Pentagon's funding of biological experiments
In Kazakhstan, a number of unknown diseases or ancient diseases considered eradicated have erupted regularly in recent years, resulting in a large number of livestock deaths. Public opinion believes that this is related to the local biological laboratory in the United States. According to a report on ukraine's Political Navigator website in January, Kazakh epidemiologist Arnosin had expressed concern about the establishment of a biological laboratory in Eurasia by the United States.
Arnosin said that biological laboratories outside the United States are conducting a large number of irresponsible experiments, and even virus leaks have occurred. Previously, a large number of livestock died from a "black-legged disease" in two states of Kazakhstan, which seems to be related to the "Central Reference Laboratory".
The Central Reference Laboratory of the United States in Kazakhstan
Professionals from many countries are also constantly speaking out. Radomil Kovačević, a professor at the Serbian Clinical Center, said that there is a risk in the U.S. biological laboratory in Ukraine, and every laboratory may produce dangerous goods for war, and the outside world knows nothing about it.
Turkish security expert and retired Admiral Tirkel Etirk said these biological experimental facilities are one of the biggest problems facing humanity today.
David Tarhan-Murawi, chairman of georgia's Patriot Union party, said that U.S. biological laboratories abroad have military purposes and that it would be best for u.N. agencies to intervene in order to understand the situation and eliminate all security risks.
The Mainland Foreign Ministry also urged the U.S. side to provide comprehensive and specific clarification on biological military activities. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that the United States has not yet made a convincing explanation, through consultation and cooperation to resolve concerns, which is the requirement of the Biological Weapons Convention, the United States has evaded, further increasing the doubts of the international community.
International skepticism has risen above the surface, with Reuters reporting that the World Health Organization has recommended that Ukraine destroy "high-threat pathogens" in its biological laboratories to prevent spills.
Screenshot of Reuters message
The United Nations Security Council met twice to address concerns, but to no avail, with the United States and the United Kingdom absent from the Biosafety Conference on April 6. At present, the US side has not explained in detail the information on the construction of hundreds of biological laboratories outside its borders, and has firmly stated that it has not violated the Biological Weapons Convention and does not accept international verification.
20 years in the United States
He has conducted 239 biological open-air experiments
Some scholars believe that as early as the Middle Ages, human beings used biological weapons in wars, and biological weapons really "have names" since the birth of modern microbiology in the 19th century. New technologies have given humans a greater ability to recognize and manipulate pathogens, but their negative effects have followed. In World War I, the German army pioneered the use of biological weapons in an attempt to infect animals with Bacillus anthracis and Burella anterus, causing national vigilance.
Soldiers attacked by poison gas
Wounded who have lost their sight due to poison gas
In June 1925, the League of Nations convened a conference in Geneva on the control of international trade in arms, arms and instruments of war. The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and 37 other countries have signed the Protocol prohibiting the use of asphyxiating, toxic or other gases and bacteriological methods of warfare in war. However, the agreement does not explicitly restrict the research and production of biological weapons, so many signatories continue to promote biological weapons research.
Just over two decades later, world war II broke out, and biological weapons took center stage in history with its ominous shadow. Nazi Germany conducted experiments on prisoners to study the effects of pathogens such as Rickettsia, hepatitis A virus and malaria parasites.
The SS was doing human experiments
Britain, France and the United States claim to be conducting biological weapons research in their own countries in response to Germany. In 1942, the American War Research Service was established to conduct research on lethal bacteria that could be mass-produced. Later, the military also established the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory, which has become an important biological and chemical weapons research base in the United States today.
Fort Detrick Laboratory in 1950
Most notoriously, Japan's Unit 731 conducted human experiments on civilians and prisoners of war in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea and other countries. After the war, Japanese participants in biological weapons research were supposed to be tried for war crimes, but the U.S. government granted immunity from prosecution for war crimes to many in exchange for so-called "human experiment information and experimental knowledge." Not only have these war criminals escaped punishment, but some have also become medical experts, health department leaders and heads of large pharmaceutical companies in Japan.
Japanese Unit 731
The United Nations also called for the elimination of all "weapons of mass destruction" after World War II, but the development of biological weapons has not ended, and there has been an escalation in some countries, especially the United States.
Documents disclosed by the Washington Post in 1979 show that in 1950, the U.S. Navy released a mist containing Serratia serratia near San Francisco. The military says the bacterium is harmless, but in reality it can cause illness and even cause fatal infections in some people.
Serratia viscous in Petri dishes
In June 1966, U.S. Army researchers released Bacillus subtilis samples on a functioning New York subway to observe "how they spread in subway tunnels and carriages." Reports later revealed that more than 1 million people were exposed between June 6 and 10 of that year, and that american civilians knew nothing about the experiment.
Between 1949 and 1969, the U.S. Army conducted a 20-year "germ warfare test program" that conducted 239 biological open-air experiments.
In 1970, the World Health Organization stated that biological weapons pose a special threat to peoples and that the consequences of their use are largely uncertain.
In 1972, more than 100 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, finally signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, also known as the Biological Weapons Convention.
The Convention prohibits the possession of biological agents other than "preventive, protective or other peaceful purposes";
Subsequently, States realized the need to improve measures of monitoring, verification and punishment of States parties, and after years of negotiations to form a draft protocol, the United States began to refuse to ratify the draft in 2001 and objected at subsequent deliberations, and the United States was the only State party to withdraw from the negotiations.
As early as the traceability of the new crown virus, the Fort Detrick Biological Laboratory in the United States was once involved in international public opinion. According to statistics, there are more than 50 P4 laboratories built or under construction in the world, of which the United States has the most, and at least 15 in its territory.
Today, it seems that the rationality of establishing many biological laboratories in the United States cannot be widely recognized by the international community.
On the one hand, the many suspicious behavior of the United States on the issue of biological weapons is questionable; on the other hand, the research of the United States does have a bad track record, posing a serious threat to the local population and the international community.
In the field of biological research, there is a great deal of ambiguity in how to define "offensive purposes" and "prevention, protection or other peaceful purposes", and it is very difficult to draw a line between research and development.
We have to be wary that as biotechnology advances, the knowledge needed to develop drugs and vaccines against pathogens risks being misused in bioweaponry development. Biological weapons, a product of scientific progress, continue to threaten human health and social stability and must be curbed with all efforts. ▲
Editor: Wang Xiaoqing