Russian and pro-Russian media and social networks are spreading information that Germany has allegedly participated in the development of biological weapons in Ukraine citing the Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
Some of the bioprojects in Ukraine were implemented in the interests of the Bundeswehr, the Russian Defence Ministry reported. A number of biological weapons testing projects in Ukraine were implemented in the interests of the Central Medical and Sanitary Service of the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). This was stated on Thursday by the Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
«We have already noted that Ukraine and other states of the post-Soviet space have become a testing ground for biological weapons not only for the United States, but also for their NATO allies, primarily Germany. A number of projects were implemented in the interests of the Central Medical and Sanitary Service of the German Armed Forces,» he said at a briefing on the results of the analysis of documents relating to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine. According to Kirillov, Bundeswehr specialists paid special attention to the causative agent of the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever. A large-scale screening of the susceptibility of the local population to this infection was carried out with a generalization of demographic, epidemiological and clinical data. «This approach allows us to identify new regional virus genotypes and select strains that cause latent clinical forms,» Kirillov explained.
He noted that the study of the natural foci of this disease was carried out under the guise of improving the Ukrainian system of epidemiological surveillance The Kyiv Institute of Veterinary Medicine and the Mechnikov Anti-Plague Institute in Odesa took part in the work. According to Kirillov, the interest of the Bundeswehr in the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever is due to the fact that the mortality rate from it can reach 30 %, and outbreaks create the need for lengthy and costly measures for treatment, prevention and special processing.
In fact, such statements by the Russian media are yet another lie. The press service of the Bundeswehr has denied such statements. The ministry said that it was probably about the Ukrainian-German Biosecurity Initiative aimed at controlling the risks of zoonotic diseases near the external border of the EU. However, this project did not conduct any research related to biological weapons. In addition to Ukraine, similar projects are being implemented in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tunisia and African G5 Sahel countries.
As for Ukraine, improving the situation in the biosecurity and healthcare sphere, especially in the east of the country, has been an urgent task since 2014, with the start of the Russian war against Ukraine. The main diagnostic methods for pathogenic microorganisms are often not available in the east of Ukraine, so the sources of infection with dangerous infectious diseases cannot be quickly detected. Therefore, since 2016, the Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology (IMB) and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) have been implementing a cooperation project in Kharkiv as part of the German Biosecurity Program in order to steadily improve the biosecurity situation in Ukraine and stabilize the health situation. The Ukrainian partner for the implementation and objectives of the project is the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine in Kharkiv.
The Institute is a national scientific center dealing with the surveillance and control of infectious diseases, as well as the coordination of vaccination programs and the prevention of infectious diseases. Kharkiv National Medical University was chosen as a partner with the start of the third phase of the project in 2020. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of the Ukrainian partner institution in the field of standardized diagnostics of highly infectious pathogens. The main attention in the implementation of the project is given to the training of technical personnel in the independent development and creation of diagnostic methods, research on the endemic spread of highly infectious pathogens, and the development of specialized personnel in t