I'm not sure what your second sentence here means. (I am taking this as a normal typo and that you mean that the labs were established to reduce the threat from Russia; please correct me if I am wrong.)
You or I may be willing to accept the official US government narrative of what these labs are in Ukraine for; that's your call to make.
However, I think we could agree that if we were a country that was repeatedly disparaged by our government, we might be less willing to accept on blind faith these same words.
(In other words, I don't think we are in a position to point the finger at Putin if he decides to follow Ronald Reagan's maxim to "Trust but verify".)
aptain Walker wrote: “I’m not sure what your second sentence here means. (I am taking this as a normal typo and that you mean that the labs were established to reduce the threat from Russia; please correct me if I am wrong.)”
These labs were already, for the most part, in place when the Russian empire collapsed. The scientists working in these labs suddenly became unemployed. They went from being well paid to facing poverty. Consequently, there was a real threat that the scientist there could be enticed by Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc., to continue their work in those countries. The US and other countries decided to take over these labs and give these scientists new jobs where we could control their research. It was far cheaper to employ them in their own countries than to bring them to the US. Generally speaking staying in their own countries was preferred by these scientists.
This program has been well known for almost 30 years. Therefore this program reduces the threat to the US, European Union, Russia, etc. Read the link I provided.
Putin knows this but he is only using this as an excuse. Amazing that you would believe Putin.