Threat of US' biolabs not hot air

On March 8, the US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testifying before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ukraine claimed that "Ukraine has biological research facilities, which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops may be seeking to gain control of".

Why is the US so concerned with the prospect of Russia's seizure of such "biological research facilities"? Nuland's confession seems to lay bare some truths of the latest finger-pointing between the US and Russia over the real purpose of the US-funded biolabs in Ukraine.

Last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that the ministry received documents from employees at the Ukrainian biological laboratories confirming the urgent steps to eradicate traces of the military-biological program in the labs on Feb 24. The labs, according to Russia, were for research on bird, bat and reptile pathogens as well as African swine fever and anthrax, with which the US planned to "establish a mechanism for the stealthy spread of deadly pathogens". The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that there were some 30 US-controlled labs on the Ukrainian soil.

The US embassy in Ukraine said on its website that the US "collaborates" with Ukraine under the Department of Defense's Biological Threat Reduction Program, which aims to "ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats".

While attempting to justify its involvement in the biological labs in Ukraine, the US government shifted the focus by accusing Russia of plotting chemical or biological warfare in Ukraine, or simply dismissing Russia's evidence as "disinformation". In fact, back at the beginning of the Russia's special operation in Ukraine, Robert Pope, director of the BTRP, had indicated that the Russia's military actions may put at risk a network of US-linked labs in Ukraine that work with dangerous pathogens and his program had lost contact with some of the labs.

According to the research by US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, BTRP was run and funded by the US' DoD, which has so far invested over $200 million into the program. BTRP initially focused on securing and dismantling biological weapons and technologies from the former Soviet Union. It later expanded its mission to carry out research on infectious diseases in host countries from Middle East and Asia. As acknowledged by the US government, the DoD established and controls 336 biological labs across 30 countries around the world and 26 of them are located in Ukraine.

According to the 2005 agreement between the DoD and the Ukrainian side, representatives of the DoD have access to all related activities at the research facilities in Ukraine. Information marked or designated by the DoD as "sensitive" should be withheld from public disclosure by Ukraine.

With absolute control of the labs, the US government has used its overseas research facilities to its own favor and conducted the most dangerous biological experiments for years, putting all potential risks to the host countries. If the program is truly of scientific nature, why the world or at least the host countries fail to access the results of its over three-decade long research? The hasty and disorganized destruction of the pathogens stored in the biolabs in Ukraine once again raises questions about the real purpose of the program. Has the US ever considered experimenting with the viruses to create biological weapons in Ukraine?

Many are still perplexed at the fact that the US has, for four decades, spared no efforts obstructing the establishment of a United Nations Biological Weapons Convention verification mechanism. Plus, of the 182 signatories to the convention, the US is the only country that pulled out of the negotiation process for such a mechanism since 2001.

Research on biological safety and infectious diseases should be an inclusive and collaborative mechanism that benefits all countries around the world. The 336 biological labs under the US control are the real threat to the world. It's time for the US to open up the labs for international independent inspection before its dirty secrecy drags the world into a real biological warfare.

The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Global Times, China Daily etc.