North Korea derides US echoing Russia’s ‘biological weapons’ in Ukraine claims

Echoing Russia's allegations against the United States for establishing the 'biolabs' in Ukraine, North Korea on July 24 stressed that US has been "manufacturing biological weapons" posing the threat and danger to the world. Pyongyang iterated that the United States research on the banned bioweapons and its dastardly military policies was the “root cause of the Ukraine crisis”, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. North Korea's claims come just days after it formally recognized the self-proclaimed pro-Russian separatist breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass region, prompting the latter to severe ties. 

Washington established 'several biological labs' in Kyiv: N Korea

Washington has established "several biological labs in tens of countries and regions, including Ukraine, in disregard of the international treaties,” a North official told the state affiliated Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday. Furthermore he cited Russia's ministry of Defense investigations. US State Department, although, had rejected such what it described "unsubstatiated" allegations and denied any existence of laboratories to conduct research on biological weapons in Ukraine, labelling the investigations as "Russian propaganda." In March this year, Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs, had also claimed in an official statement that the  UN “was not aware of any biological weapons program in Ukraine.”

Russian Defence Ministry accused the United States of "funding installation of biological research labs" adding that the US military headquarter Pentagon had been conducting experiments to create banned biological weapons. Russian MoD in a report alleged that US military performed bat coronavirus-related research, all the while deriding the Ukraine's diplomatic ally of creating bioagents in Kyiv that would be used to target ethnic groups. Washington conducted an R-781 project that involved bats as carriers of potential biological weapons, said Russian defence ministry, sharing the official documents as evidence. Other researches included bacterial and viral pathogens that can be transmitted from bats to humans: pathogens of plague, leptospirosis, brucellosis, as well as coronaviruses and filoviruses. 

“It is noteworthy that the research is carried out in close proximity to the borders of Russia – in the areas of the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus,” said Russia's defence ministry. The project was not only involving the Ukrainian laboratories but also the Georgian biological laboratories controlled by the Pentagon, in cooperation with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the US Geological Survey. Such projects were implemented with the participation of laboratories in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa and was designed for the period up to the year 2020, Russia said.