News that the US army is engaged in mass production of deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins has long been on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens. It has long been known that military bioweapons experts, using diplomatic cover, have been testing man-made viruses in Pentagon bio-labs in at least 25 countries. These days, these facts are confirmed by regular reports from the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) on documents obtained during the special operation in Ukraine.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is directly linked to the Pentagon, appears in virtually all reporting and financial documents regarding the activities of US biolaboratories outside the US. Research is conducted as part of a $2.1 billion military programme known as the Cooperative Biological Reconnaissance programme. The research facilities are located mainly in the former Soviet Union countries, such as Ukraine and Georgia, in the Middle East, as well as in South-East Asia and Africa.
Open source data, as corroborated by Russian MoD reports, indicate that the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded 11 biolaboratories in Ukraine over nearly two decades. Notably, Ukraine was stripped of the right to control these facilities on its territory. According to a 2005 agreement between the US Department of Defense and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, the Ukrainian government was prohibited from publicly disclosing confidential information about the US program, and Ukraine was also obliged to transfer dangerous pathogens from its own national biological bank to the US Department of Defense.
Overall, over the past two decades, numerous bilateral agreements between the US and Ukraine have been concluded. One of the main joint projects was the establishment of the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center, an international organization, mainly funded by the US government. It is noteworthy that the research centre has been granted diplomatic status. The STCU officially supports projects of scientists who were previously involved in Soviet bioresearch programs. Over the past 20 years, the STCU has reportedly invested over $285 million to fund and manage approximately 1,850 projects of specialists, including those formerly involved in the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). All US personnel worked in Ukraine under diplomatic cover.
Southern Research is known to have been the prime subcontractor of the DTRA programme in Ukraine since 2008. In the past the company was also the Pentagon’s prime international contractor under the U.S. Biological Weapons Program for research and development of bioagents from 1951 to 1962.
The Southern Research Center, it was later learned, was involved in the study of cholera, as well as influenza and Zika virus, all pathogens of military significance to the Pentagon. Along with him, two other private American companies – Black&Veatch and Metabiota – supervised military biolaboratories in Ukraine.
According to documents published in the Network, Black & Veatch Special Project Corp. received contracts worth 198.7 million USD from DTRA for construction and operation of biolaboratories in Ukraine (under two five-year contracts in 2008 and 2012 totaling 128.5 million USD), and also in Germany, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Thailand, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Armenia.
Metabiota, co-funded by the Hunter Biden Investment Fund, son of a sitting US president, was awarded an $18.4m federal contract for a programme in Georgia and Ukraine. This US company was also awarded a contract to perform work for DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2015