Russia’s radioactive, chemical, and biological protection forces chief, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, claimed that in 2020, Ukraine biolabs gave fake money infected with tuberculosis to village children in the Lugansk People’s Republic.
Moscow claims Ukraine tried to infect the people of the Russia-aligned Lugansk People’s Republic with tuberculosis (TB) and permitted the US government to conduct human experiments in psychiatric institutions in Kharkov.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, Chief of Russia’s Radioactive, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces, claimed during a briefing on the findings of the Russian Defense Ministry’s investigation into the purportedly US-funded bioweapon labs in Ukraine that Russian forces had obtained evidence suggesting Kiev attempted to infect residents of the Slavyanoserbsk district of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) with a highly pathogenic strain of tuberculosis in 2020.
“Leaflets made in the form of counterfeit banknotes were infected with the causative agent of tuberculosis and distributed among minors in the village of Stepovoe,” Kirillov said, adding that the criminals took into account children’s behavior, which includes “putting things in their mouth” and handling food without washing their hands.
The results of the bacteriological research, according to Kirillov, indicated that the isolated bacteria detected on the leaflets were resistant to first and second line anti-TB treatments, making the disease they caused significantly more difficult and expensive to treat.
He went on to quote the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station’s conclusion, which stated that “the infection of the banknotes was most likely artificial, since the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in a concentration that can ensure infection and the development of the tuberculosis process.”
The LPR TB dispensary also saw traces of “deliberate, man-made contamination of leaflets with biomaterials of high pathogenicity,” according to Kirillov.
Officials from Russia also claimed that the Pentagon was conducting “inhumane” experiments on patients at at least two psychiatric institutes in Kharkov. Kirillov explained, “The main category of experimental subjects was a group of male, highly physically exhausted patients aged between 40 to 60 years.”
The trials were carried out by foreign specialists who arrived in Ukraine via third-party countries in order to keep the US’ involvement hidden. According to Kirillov, the specialists were quickly removed from the nation early this year, right before the Russian military intervention began.
“In January 2022, the foreign citizens who conducted the experiments were urgently evacuated, and the equipment and drugs they used were taken to the western regions of Ukraine,” he said.
Last week, Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that the service had “clearly identified” many Americans participating in military biological research in Ukraine, including Pentagon employees and organizations with ties to the US military. Between 2005 and early 2022, Washington poured more than $224 million into biological research in Russia, according to Russian estimates, according to Bastrykin.
Officials from the United States confirmed the existence of “biological research facilities” in Ukraine, but stated that the US merely offered “assistance” for initiatives that did not entail the creation of bioweapons.
Following Ukraine’s refusal to implement the conditions of the Minsk agreements, which were first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s subsequent recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, Russia launched an attack on the neighboring country in late February. The agreements negotiated by Germany and France were intended to grant special status to the breakaway areas within Ukraine.
Since then, the Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine declare itself a neutral country that will never join the NATO military alliance led by the United States. Kiev believes the Russian offensive was unjustified and refutes suggestions that it planned to seize the two republics forcefully.