On September 19, Channel One, RIA Novosti, TASS, Lenta, RT, RBC, NTV, REN TV quoted Igor Kirillov, head of the RCBZ troops of the Russian Armed Forces, as saying. According to him, the United States admitted that they conducted biological research in Ukraine on low-income citizens and patients in psychiatric clinics. This recognition allegedly sounded at a meeting of the states-participants of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons, convened in early September at the initiative of Russia.
“The explanations of the United States and Ukraine regarding the export of strains and biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens and the observance of ethical standards when conducting research on military personnel, low-income citizens, as well as on one of the most vulnerable categories of the population, patients of psychiatric hospitals, looked extremely unconvincing. When discussing this issue, the American delegation acknowledged such facts, while noting that the transfer of samples of pathogenic biomaterials to the United States “was infrequent,” Kirillov said at a briefing.
As early as September 13, a report about this meeting in Geneva appeared on the website of the US State Department. Nothing is said about the "confessions" that Kirillov talks about. But there is a direct opposite statement:
“In the presence of delegations from 89 countries, the United States and Ukraine delivered a thorough and comprehensive series of presentations strongly rebutting Russia's absurd and false claims about the development of American biological weapons and biolabs in Ukraine. The technical experts from the US and Ukrainian delegations explicitly explained their collaboration and US assistance on public health, biosecurity, biosecurity, and disease surveillance facilities as part of the broader US Cooperative Threat Reduction program. The United States and Ukraine also emphasized that such activities are consistent with the provisions of the Biological Weapons Convention, especially Article X, which encourages and supports cooperation and assistance from States Parties.
The United States takes its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention seriously and therefore participated fully, transparently and in good faith in the Article V process. The same cannot be said for the Russian delegation, which circulated to selected delegations the proposed “joint statement” with its conclusions from the meeting yet before the United States and Ukraine started their presentations.
The United States will continue to fulfill its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention, including by helping partners around the world strengthen global health security and reduce the impact of infectious diseases on our societies, and we condemn the ongoing Russian disinformation campaign to divert attention from an unprovoked and brutal war against Ukraine and justify it.”
Thus, the United States most severely rejected all the accusations of Russia and, in turn, recalled its ongoing aggression against Ukraine. Separately, it is noteworthy that Kirillov announced the "sensational" news about Washington's recognition of all kinds of atrocities only ten days after the end of the meeting with his American colleagues.
In addition, RIA Novosti attracted microbiologist Igor Nikulin as an expert, who is usually presented in the pro-Russian media as "a former member of the UN Commission on Biological and Chemical Weapons." Recall that this is not true: there is no commission with such a name – “on biological and chemical weapons” – in the UN, there is the 1540 Committee, established in 2004 by resolution 1540 on the non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Its members are considered not individuals, but states, and their composition is rotated annually. Russia has been a member of the committee for all the years of its existence. The committee has a group of official experts, no more than one from each country. Now Russia is represented by Alexei Baronin, before him Petr Litavrin, Gennady Lyutai and Viktor Slipchenko worked in different years. Igor Nikulin is not on the list of current and former experts.
Nikulin became famous for several extravagant statements in the Russian media – for example, confirming the words of Vladimir Putin that the United States is developing selective biological weapons that will only hit Russians. Or that the coronavirus that caused the pandemic was created artificially, and again by the insidious Americans. He also talked about the secret biological weapons laboratory created by the United States in Georgia, and that the Novichok, which poisoned the Skripals, could not be taken to the UK in luggage because of its pungent smell (in fact, it has no smell) . Nikulin argued that there could not have been a chemical attack using sarin in the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun, because not all victims were foaming at the mouth (in fact, this symptom does not always occur with sarin poisoning). So the journalist Christel Nean chose such a peculiar expert on the effect of "Novichok" on the body that RIA, reporting on her article, seemed to be embarrassed to mention his name.
Thus, it makes no sense to discuss Nikulin's new absurd statements, not supported by any evidence.
