Yes, just adding some ancillary speculation, for what it’s worth. I think the show trials for Azov Brigade members is for public relations purposes (especially domestically), to justify the invasion, and cover for their own impending war crimes trials
I don’t have a problem with bio labs in general. Every country should have them.
I think it likely that the old Soviet biological warfare program did have facilities and key personnel in the Ukraine, that would be of covert interest to Intelligence Services and Militaries (as also with their nuclear and chemical programs).
But there are legitimate reasons to sponsor such labs, for general capacity building - disease and pest monitoring and management for Public Health and agriculture. We should want all countries monitoring and reporting outbreaks, and able to help manage them.
Exactly. We help fund these labs in the countries that need it (and helped staff and train staff until they got a pool of staff educated in certain countries) in countries like Cambodia. In Ukraine and other countries formerly under the old USSR, it was important to retain professional staff with good-paying jobs to keep them from being lured away to contribute their expertise to certain countries and terrorist organizations.
And, yes, it’s a good thing there is a global network of labs doing surveillance for emerging diseases and reporting to WHO, CDC, etc. Too bad China did not report Covid in a timely fashion.