DISINFO: The US transfers biological labs from Ukraine to Africa
SUMMARY
Russia's Defense Ministry warns African partners against cooperating with the US in the military-biological sphere, stating that such cooperation erodes national sovereignty over biosecurity and worsens public health. The US is also transferring unfinished Ukrainian military-biological projects to Africa.
RESPONSE
The claim is an attempt to advance the long-discredited pro-Kremlin narrative about US-funded biolabs with military purposes in Ukraine and other countries, which pro-Kremlin outlets and Russian authorities continue promoting despite repeated debunking.
This is a years-long disinformation campaign by pro-Kremlin sources. The US Department of State has confirmed that the United States does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine. According to the UN, there are no bio-projects run by the US Department of Defence. Andy Weber, a member of the Arms Control Association Board of Directors and a former Assistant Secretary of Defence for nuclear, chemical, and biological defence programmes confirms that there are no US biolabs in Ukraine.
Conversely, the United States founded its "Biological Threat Reduction Programme" in the 1990s to reduce the risk from biological weapons that had been left behind by the USSR in countries including Ukraine. Under this programme certain labs receive funding from the US for modernisation and equipment, but are managed locally, not by the US.
Read similar disinformation cases: Kazakhstan agreed to host 30 American biolabs relocated from Ukraine; Pentagon develops biological weapons in more than 470 biolabs around the world; The US carries out biological provocations and invests in targeting certain races and American laboratories are creating selective biological weapons.