Moscow: Washington is concerned about disclosure of its financing of military biological program near Russia’s borders

Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, called on the US authorities to immediately halt military biological activities in republics of the former Soviet Union, describing the statements of representatives of the US administration to Russia of violating chemical and biological agreements as tense and impudent.

“Such tense statements by the US authorities are  evidence of the serious concern of the White House about the disclosure of the truth of the work going on in the military biological program near the borders of Russia with American funding,” Antonov said, according to RIA Novosti.

The ambassador stressed that the time has come for Washington to speed up the process of destroying its chemical weapons stockpiles.

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the data on biological laboratories in Ukraine confirms allegations against the United States regarding compliance with the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons.

“Documents were received from the employees of Ukrainian biological laboratories regarding the emergency destruction of particularly dangerous pathogens on February 24. This emergency destruction is necessary to prevent the disclosure of facts of Ukraine and the United States’ violations of Article 1 of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.

Last Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that plague and anthrax bacteria had been treated in a biological laboratory in the city of Lvov as part of the military biological program.

Inas Abdulkareem