Russia on Ukraine and USA - Security Council Media Stakeout (1 April 2022)

Media Stakeout by Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, on Ukraine and the USA.

The First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations of the Russian Federation told journalists that his country was releasing a new letter with documentation alleging a military biological program in Ukraine supported by the United States.

Dmitry Polyanskiy said, "In the course of special military operation in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense discovered evidence that Ukrainian authorities supported and directly sponsored by the US Department of Defense, were implementing dangerous projects and experiments as a part of military biological program."

According to the Russian diplomat, these activities "have been carried out on the Ukrainian territory in the middle of Eastern Europe, in the close proximity to Russian borders for many years, posing a real threat to biological security of our country and the region."

"I recommend everyone to scrutinize these materials. Those are the copies of original documents, contracts communications between the Ukrainian side and the Pentagon with authentic signatures, project documentation, etc.," the ambassador said.

According to Polyanskiy, all this time, Russian authorities have been seeking clarification from the United States.

"In particular, we asked to clarify why the US Department of State keeps insisting that the US operates no laboratories in Ukraine. while there is a documented proof of Pentagon directly managing these labs, with its subcontractors implementing projects with deadly bio agents," Polyanskiy said.

He noted that the key question is: "Why has the Pentagon been so deeply involved in biological projects on Ukraine, contracting the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, if, as the US delegation claims all these activities are exclusively peaceful?"

First Deputy Permanent Representative said they had received no answers so far.

"The US as well as other Western delegations have been totally dismissive. They refuse to provide any comments of of the evidence that has been revealed labeling it as Russian disinformation," he said.

Polyanskiy also argued that military biological activities of the US on the territory of Ukraine are a violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.

"Such activities bring up biological threats of global scale, which respect no border and can lead up to new pandemics, which can surpass COVID-19 pandemic," he said.

The Russian Federation has made these allegations before and, on their initiative, the UN Security Council discussed the issue twice in March.

At the time, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs said that the organization "is not aware of any such biological weapons programmes" in Ukraine.

On those dates, Polyanskiy said, the Russian Federation circulated documented evidence received by their Minister of Defense as official documents of the Security Council and the General Assembly. A new letter with documentation should be released this Friday.