The coronavirus infection pandemic has revived a somewhat dwindled interest in American bio-laboratories, which for years have been built with Pentagon money in countries around the world. Questions began to appear in Ukraine, but could the country’s leadership be able to answer them?
Earlier, News Front already reported that fourteen facilities were created in Ukraine as part of an extremely dubious collaboration between the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the US Department of Defense. The corresponding agreement was signed back in 2005. In fact, the then Kiev leadership allowed the US Agency to reduce security threats to deploy large-scale activities in Ukraine to build bio-laboratories.
Now the following facilities are operating in the country: Central Reference Laboratory of the Ukrainian Research Anti-Plague Institute in Odessa, Vinnitsa Diagnostic Laboratory, Dnepropetrovsk Diagnostic Laboratory, Dnipropetrovsk State Regional Laboratory of Veterinary Medicine, Lviv Diagnostic Laboratory, Lviv State Regional Laboratory of Veterinary Medicine, Lviv Scientific Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene, Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Institute of Vet rinarnoy medicine in Kiev, Kherson diagnostic laboratory, diagnostic laboratory, Ternopil, Zakarpattia Diagnostic Laboratory, Kharkiv diagnostic laboratory.
Also in 2011, the Crimean Republican Diagnostic Laboratory was opened in Simferopol, and the Lugansk Regional Diagnostic Veterinary Laboratory in Lugansk a year later.
The donor of all facilities is the US Department of Defense. In total, the agency allocated $ 24.26 million to these laboratories.
The intergovernmental organization “Scientific and Technical Center of Ukraine” coordinated the activities of the facilities. Even the organization’s official tasks included “preventing the spread of knowledge and experience associated with weapons of mass destruction”. Foreign employees of the Center had diplomatic immunity status, which simplified their activities.
Among the projects that the Center is engaged in with US money, one can see, for example, the development of an effective molecular design of promising antiviral drugs. It is noteworthy that STCU specialists have been doing this since 2006.
Ukrainian commentator Aleksey Kurakin, commenting on such an activity, called it “a screen of beautiful, often meaningless words, covering other information that is closed to citizens.”
The fact is that the US-Ukraine agreement, concluded 15 years ago, includes a number of extremely dubious points. Article 7 states that “the government of Ukraine must refuse to publicly disclose information designated by the US Department of Defense as” sensitive. ” This article also states that the number of persons with access to “confidential information” should be extremely limited.
At the same time, according to paragraph 4 of Article 7, the United States can gain access to information and developments that appear to be “state secret of Ukraine”.
Earlier it became known that the deputies of the Opposition platform sent to the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal, as well as the leadership of the Security Service and the Ministry of Health requests about the legality of the functioning of US laboratories in Ukraine. Moreover, the deputies drew attention to the fact that the construction and location of objects suspiciously coincides with foci of infectious diseases. However, such a request poses Zelensky with an uncomfortable choice: to answer uncomfortable questions, disclosing information about the activities of American laboratories, breaking a long-standing deal that will invariably entail punitive measures on the part of the United States, or to demonstrate a commitment to the American “partnership” to the detriment of the interests of citizens.