Pentagon Biologists Explore Potential Use of Mpox Virus As Biological Agent, Russian MoD States

The United States government is actively searching for new sources of funding for military biological research from leading American 'philanthropic' institutions, including the Clinton, Soros, Rockefeller and Biden Foundations, RCBD Troops chief Igor Kirillov has announced.

"Based on an analysis of documents received in the course of the special military operation, the structure of the system created by the US administration for the global management of biological risks has become clear," Kirillov said in a briefing Monday, summarizing an analysis of US military-biological activities in Ukraine and globally over the course of 2023.

"It consists of government agencies and private contractors, including representatives of Big Pharma. Through the organs of the executive branch, a legislative framework is being created to finance military-biological research directly from the federal budget. Guarantees provided by the state attract funds from non-governmental organizations controlled by the Democratic Party leadership, including the Clinton, Rockefeller, Soros and Biden Foundations," Kirillov said.

According to the RCBD Troops' chief's information, the main private contractors involved in the Pentagon's military-biological program include Metabiota, Black & Veatch and CH2M, with the companies tasked with the construction of facilities and the supply of equipment to labs around the globe. Their work is coordinated by the DoD's Defense Threat Reduction Agency. On the Big Pharma front, Pfizer, Moderna, Gilead, Dynport Vaccine, AbbVie, Parexel, Eli Lilly & Co, Merck and Battelle are identified as key partners.

Washington's goals are multifold, Kirillov said, and include the study of the causative agents of "particularly dangerous infections in regions of the world that are strategically important for the United States," and achieving "superiority" in biomanufacturing, including by using biological espionage against potential geopolitical adversaries.

"Materials received have confirmed that the US military was set the task of monitoring the biological situation in the Middle East and Central Asia, territories bordering China, Turkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia," Kirillov said. "Over the past year, the Pentagon developed and adopted a number of conceptual documents involving the expansion of the foreign network of US-controlled biological laboratories, and continuing military biological research beyond America's national jurisdiction."

Furthermore, the RCBD Troops chief said, 2023 saw the creation of new administrative and technical structures, including the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, and the State Department's new Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, with their main aims assumed to be centered on securing the further expansion of America's military-biological activities worldwide.

"While the stated goals include 'monitoring infectious diseases' and providing assistance to developing countries, the example of Ukraine makes clear how the military-biological potential of the United States is being built up," using such otherwise seemingly benign institutions, Kirillov said.

The RCBD Troops chief pointed out, for instance, that by the time Russia kicked off its military operation in Ukraine, the Pentagon was already deeply engaged in a series of dangerous experiments studying the causative agents of dangerous diseases, including tularemia, anthrax and hantavirus, monitoring the local biological environment, collecting virus strains and studying the susceptibility of the local population to various diseases (including via unethical and potentially illegal experiments against an unwitting civilian population, ed.).

Washington's European allies engaged in similar projects throughout 2023, promoting a network of 'Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Risk Mitigation Centers of Excellence', which Kirillov said are factually aimed at placing biolabs in former Soviet republic countries. The Ukrainian case has shed light on how such institutions are financed via a series of grants to the country's Science and Technology Center, with similar projects popping up in Central Asia and countries of the Southern Caucasus.

Listing examples of military-biological activities by NATO countries in the former Soviet space, Kirillov pointed to 'Project 2410' - conducted with the participation of researchers from the University of Florida, studying natural resistance of the causative agent of the brucellosis virus in domesticated and wild animals, including its possible transmission to human beings.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Experts Urge African Gov'ts to Probe US Biological Research Activities on the Continent

10 October 2023, 18:20

Another initiative, 'Project 2513' deals with risk factors and resistance of virulent enterobacteriaceae, including "isolating strains which are resistant to all known classes of antibiotics."

"Project 2545 involves modeling the evolutionary changes of individual viruses which are highly pathogenic to humans. The research was supported by the UK Research and Innovation agency," Kirillov said.

As before, the RCBD Troops chief said, US military-biological research abroad in 2023 was designed to take advantage of gaps in international legislation, allowing scientists to engage in highly risky research abroad which they would be prohibited from doing at home.

"The fact that the United States is blocking any and all international initiatives to verify [its adherence to] the Biological Weapons Convention is of particular concern. This excludes the possibility of checking the activities of laboratories both in the United States and abroad," Kirillov said, pointing to US efforts to block or ignore Russian questions about the potential violations of the Convention by Kiev and Washington, including as relates to "research carried out on Ukrainian military personnel and the mentally ill, and the concealment by Ukraine and the United States of evidence of cooperation in the military-biological field in international reporting."

Throughout 2023, Russia continued its efforts to identify individuals engaged in US military-biological activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, from DTRA and Eco-Health Alliance officials to various other government officials and private contractors, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The RCBD Troops' efforts also included uncovering training for potential false flag scenarios to accuse Russia of using bioweapons - including one such training session in Lvov, western Ukraine, in August 2023, involving Ukraine's Security Service and National Police.

"We have said repeatedly that the work of American military biologists is aimed at the creation of 'artificially controlled epidemics', and that it is not controlled within the framework of the Biological Weapons Convention nor the UN Secretary-General's mechanism for investigating the use of biological weapons," Kirillov said.

In light of these activities, the RCBD Troops chief expressed concerns about the potential for the "further deterioration" of the global epidemiological situation, including via the creation of new "artificial foci of diseases and an uncontrolled expansion" of disease carriers. The identification of Asian and African disease-carrying mosquitos in European countries, and the increase in the incidence of atypical infections across the region, from dengue to West Nile virus, are all evidence of this deteriorating situation, Kirillov said.

"Of particular concern is the growing number of studies of smallpox and other human-pathogenic orthopoxviruses conducted by US military specialists, [including] assessments of the mpox virus as a potential damaging biological agent and searching for agent-based imitators of smallpox viruses," the senior Russian officer said. "Furthermore, despite the World Health Assembly ban, members of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases has conducted aerobiological experiments using two strains of the variola virus."

Such efforts could easily spark a global smallpox pandemic, Kirillov warned, citing the examples of the recent mpox pandemic and the increased incidence of cowpox observed over the past decade.

"I will remind you that American researchers are showing keen interest in the synthesis of orthopoxviruses. In 2017, they synthesized the functional genome of the horsepox virus. At the same time, the potential for artificially produced Lassa, Ebola, and Marburg viruses, as well as coronaviruses which are pathogenic to humans, has been demonstrated," Kirillov said, pointing, for example, to the 2022 research at Boston University to create a new type of SARS-CoV-2 that's far deadlier than any previously discovered strain.

"The risks of such dual-use research increase significantly when artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies are incorporated. This was clearly demonstrated by one US firm which used an AI-based theraputic compound generator to create potential chemical warfare agents," the RCBD Troops commander stressed.

Ultimately, Kirillov said, the continued "systematic expansion" of the US's military-biological programs poses a clear "threat to the security of the Russian Federation and other states considered by the United States as strategic adversaries."

"The scale of dual-use research conducted in the United States and the global biological risks it creates raise questions on the need for an independent international investigation," Kirillov said, noting that Russian revelations uncovered over the course of the special military operation in Ukraine have forced even staunch US allies to reconsider their position regarding potential US violations of the Biological Weapons Convention.