Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that the latest update on the Pentagon-funded research in Ukraine has noted that the US-funded biolabs have carried out unethical human experiments, according to RT, Russia’s English-language TV news network.
The allegations concern a laboratory located in Merefa, a city in Ukraine’s Kharkov region, located about 20 kilometers southwest of the provincial capital. The Russian military claimed that in the period between 2019 and 2021, “American scientists from the lab” have carried out a series of experiments on human beings, using the patients at a psychiatric ward in Kharkov as subjects.
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The subjects were screened based on their age, nationality and immunity status and were closely monitored, the ministry said.
The Russian ministry said it had eyewitness testimonies of the “inhuman experiments,” but the ministry did not give any further detail or name of the witnesses, citing the necessity to protect them.
The data collected indicates that the lab shut down in January and all the operative equipment in the lab was transferred to western Ukraine.
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Russia suspects that the Pentagon is liable for the funding of clandestine bioweapon labs in Ukraine and many other nations, RT reported.
The US government says the labs operating under the US military’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DRTA) act as biological outposts monitoring the environment for potentially dangerous infections that could emerge naturally.
Moscow says the research found may have military applications.
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The Russian Defense Ministry has held some media briefings regarding the program and labs in Ukraine since Moscow launched the special military operation in the country. The Russian government has argued that the evidence found has confirmed its long-held suspicions about American intentions.