DISINFO: US biolabs develop weapons able to selectively target ethnic groups
SUMMARY
It has been confirmed that US biolabs in Ukraine, Georgia, and a number of other post-Soviet states have been developing biological weapons able to target specific ethnic groups based on collected DNA samples.
RESPONSE
The claim is an attempt to advance the long-discredited pro-Kremlin narrative about US-funded biolaboratories with military purposes in Ukraine and other countries, which pro-Kremlin outlets and Russian authorities continue promoting despite repeated debunking.
The claim is presented with zero evidence and thus ignores the fact that a biological weapon targeting specific genomes remains in the realm of hypothesis for a number of reasons, such as the challenge of obtaining genetic markers exclusive to a particular ethnic group; finding a virus that will only target these specific markers; and ensuring the virus does not mutate (which it invariably will) and potentially become deadly to its makers.
There is nothing sinister about Ukraine’s civilian public health laboratories, whose work is indeed public and funded by global institutions. The country has dozens of civilian public health laboratories that work to research and mitigate the threats of dangerous diseases, some of which receive financial and other support from the US, the EU and the World Health Organization (WHO), which pro-Kremlin disinformation falsely portrayed as military sites, deliberately blurring the line between biological weapons and biological research.
Calling for independent investigations, only to attack international bodies when results are negative for the Kremlin, is a frequent modus operandi of Russian authorities, as proven by the cases of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the downing of the MH17 flight or the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury.
In this case, Russia tried in October 2022 to promote a UN investigation on these accusations, but it failed to gather any support, as members of the Security Council argued that Russia’s allegations lacked any evidence. In fact, Russia’s claims about a US-funded biological weapons programme in Ukraine have been widely refuted -including by the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu and by Russian biologists who examined Moscow’s “proof”.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that Russia presented evidence of US biolabs in Ukraine at the convention on biological weapons, that new evidence of US military-biological activity emerged in Ukraine, that disease outbreaks in Ukraine are linked to the activity of US biolabs, that Zelenskyy ordered the destruction of evidence regarding the development of biological weapons, or that bio-experiments in US labs turned Ukrainian soldiers into ‘most cruel monsters’.