Germany’s biological experiments activity in Ukraine
It appears the NATO member's involvement in Ukraine biolabs is much deeper than previously thought, having worked alongside the U.S. for a number of years.
The 16th April RT article linked in the image above continues as follows:
Speaking at a US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on March 9, 2022, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, said Washington was trying to prevent the transfer of some research materials from Ukrainian bio-laboratories to Russian forces. During press briefings on March 7, 10, 17, 24 and 31, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Forces Igor Kirillov described the US bio-military activities in Ukraine, based on the information obtained during the SMO in Ukraine by the Armed Forces of Russia. He also set forth conclusions based on expert analysis. Researchers continue to study these materials.
Question: What is Russia doing to see that the United States provides clarification on its military biological cooperation with Ukraine?
Maria Zakharova: Russia has made public the facts that have come to light to date at the UN and other international organisations and called on the US authorities to provide detailed explanations, but, predictably, Washington does not appear to be ready to share with the public any meaningful information on its military biological programme in Ukraine.
Furthermore, clearly, the White House thinks that offence is the best defence and has launched yet another propaganda campaign centered on the false assertion that our country’s efforts to draw the attention of the international community to the activities of US military biologists in Ukraine are allegedly nothing more than a smoke screen, which, they say, Moscow will try to use to cover up the potential use of biological or chemical weapons during the special military operation that is conducted by the Russian Armed Forces.
This crude attempt by the US to divert public attention from this dangerously explosive issue of US-controlled biological laboratories in Ukraine and to drown it in this “apocalyptic sensation” was – at first glance unexpectedly – strongly supported by German political leadership. A number of leading German politicians and top officials, including Federal Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, have released statements that mimic the US narrative in the form of righteous threats and warnings directed at Russia. Berlin’s official proactive verbal stance remains in line with the strategy that it has pursued for a long time now in the context of the Ukraine crisis (which isn’t helpful in settling it now and which earlier led the Minsk process into a dead-end with its deliberate pro-Kiev slant), but nevertheless stands out in its blatant cynicism of the overall flow of anti-Russia rhetoric that has been coming from Germany in recent weeks. First of all, in view of the key circumstance that even before the Russian Armed Forces started this special military operation, Germany, alongside the United States, had been conducting vigorous military biological activities in Ukraine for many years and, possibly, continues to do so. We strongly believe that this is largely what motivates Germany to be more active, as compared to other EU countries, in its attempts to ascribe to our country criminal plans concerning the use of biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine and the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, which have not yet been liberated.
Question: Are there any additional details about Germany’s military biological activities in Ukraine?
Maria Zakharova: For you to better understand the situation, I will cite the following facts. Since 2013, under the auspices of the German Federal Foreign Office, the German Government has been implementing the German Biosecurity Programme (GBP) which includes partnership projects with government agencies and research organisations in focus countries, which Ukraine became part of in 2014, the year of Maidan. German specialists from the Institute of Microbiology of the German Armed Forces (Munich), Friedrich Loeffler Institute (Greifswald-Riems Island), Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg) and the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), which specialise in research of deadly biological agents, are engaged in practical activities.
According to the German Federal Foreign Office, the third phase of the GBP will be implemented in 2020-2022. We can infer from the publicly available materials that the GBP’s stated technical goals include, among others, the gathering of epidemic intelligence in third countries, including with the use of big data technology, and developing the infrastructure of partner countries for handling dangerous biological agents.
The Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine in Kharkov has been the Institute of Microbiology of the German Armed Forces’ main Ukrainian counterparty since 2016, which we know from its own data. The two institutes cooperate under the Ukrainian-German project titled “Initiative on Biological Safety and Biological Defence in the Management of the Zoonotic Risks at the Outer Borders of the European Union.” The fact that its official goal is to “improve the biological defence and security situation” in Ukraine, “particularly in the east of the country” gives rise to the rhetorical question of which border the German military biologists consider an outer border for the purposes of their professional interests. Is it the Russian-Ukrainian border?
The Institute of Microbiology claims in its materials that the project is related to the “potential threat of biological terrorism” in Ukraine amid the unending hostilities in eastern regions of that country. It is crystal clear that this is a way to send a subtle message about the DPR and LPR’s possible “involvement” in hatching plans for the use of internationally prohibited biological weapons. In so doing, the German military have been deliberately intimidating their Ukrainian counterparts for a long time and have, in fact, been psychologically pitting them against the Donbass republics. Ukrainian biological safety experts invariably participate in the medical biodefence conferences that are regularly held by the Institute of Microbiology of the German Armed Forces.
Obviously, to ensure protection against a potential biological attack, it is first necessary to study the potential biological agents with which it can be made. In other words, it is necessary to conduct research in the field of biological or chemical weapons. The Armed Forces of Germany (AFG) have enough knowledge and practical skills in this area, as was demonstrated by the scandalous incident with the mysterious poisoning of blogger Alexey Navalny. Specialists from the AFG Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology – a military institution allied with the AFG Institute of Microbiology – supposedly very quickly detected in the body of the Russian citizen traces of some military toxin that NATO lists in the Novichok family. Such a high level of expertise – if, of course, all statements were factually accurate – suggests that the AFG is able to synthesise toxic substances independently, including the notorious Novichok and its markers.
Germany’s Friedrich Loeffler Institute that is in charge of the centre for the study of the most dangerous viruses and zoonotic infections on the Baltic Island of Riems, maintains active cooperation with the Ukrainian State Research Institute of Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary-Sanitary Expertise (Kiev), the State Scientific Control Institute of Bio-Technology and Strains of Microorganisms (Kiev) and also with the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine (Kharkov) that cooperates in parallel with the AFG Institute of Microbiology. In Ukraine, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute has focused on Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. Soviet scientists discovered it for the first time on the territory of Russian Crimea in 1944. There is documented evidence that the institute commissioned its Ukrainian partners to collect samples of ectoparasite recipients of bats that were transferred to the afore-mentioned Reims Island under the existing agreements.
The Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine has concentrated its activities in Ukraine on extremely dangerous fevers – Denge, Chikungunya, West Nile and Usutu, to name a few.
This information on Germany’s bio-military activities in Ukraine is far from exhaustive. It cannot be ruled out that, as the special military operation progresses, additional documents will be discovered by the Russian Armed Forces. According to confirmed reports, Germany closely coordinated its work on biological security with its American allies that established a network of at least 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine. In addition to their other activities, they were involved in dangerous research.
We urge German officials to immediately stop spreading false allegations about our country’s intentions to use weapons banned by international law. We believe that such statements can only serve to push neo-Nazi battalions to commit horrible provocations, and moral responsibility for their tragic consequences will be shared by Berlin.
Thank you Linda for sharing with me The Daily Exposé article which follows.
Germany’s Military Biological Activity in Ukraine, Should We Be Concerned?
by Rhoda Wilson • April 18, 2022
According to the Russian Federation Permanent Representative to the UN Office in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, extensive dangerous biological military weapons and research programs have been found in Ukraine.
Many of these highly exotic projects are being funded by the United States, under the Pentagon’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency (“DTRA”). However, other alleged bioweapons programs and their facilities are also funded and steered by Germany’s Foreign Ministry and the German Armed Forces indicating that NATO member involvement in Ukraine is much deeper than previously thought.
After extensive research including numerous well-documented sources, it now appears, as suspected, that Ukraine has become a NATO outsourcing destination for biological weapons research and development.
It has now been confirmed and demonstrated that the US Department of Defence and its subsidiary DTRA are funding offshore defence biological and scientific research projects. The evidence suggests that these activities are “dual-use” whereby biosafety research is interchangeable with the development of internationally prohibited bioweapons. Because of the inherent ambiguity of this area of research, such programs and their facilities have proven to be impervious to any meaningful oversight or international inspection regime.
Background to the German-Ukraine Relationship
To better understand how deeply German interests are invested in Ukraine it’s important to firstly consider the German-Ukraine relationship.
Germany is Ukraine’s largest civilian bilateral donor with payments amounting to around US$220 million. For comparison purposes, the United States gave just under US$200 million. Additionally, Germany makes contributions through the European Union (“EU”). In 2018-2019 Germany made the largest contribution, €400 million, via the EU.
Germany has also been supporting Ukraine’s political and economic “transformation” with pledges totalling €771 million since 2014. An additional €96.5 million in new commitments were agreed upon during intergovernmental negotiations on 30 November 2021.
Added to the above is a loan guarantee scheme with a total value of €500 million launched by the German government in 2014.
Germany has also been supporting Ukraine’s military medical service. Since 2014, Germany’s military medical donations have been more than €13 million. And Germany is funding a deployable field hospital with a procurement cost of €5.3 million, plus a training component, with an estimated delivery date of February / March 2022.
Biolabs In Ukraine
In 2013, the German Federal Foreign Office launched the “German Partnership Program for Excellence in Biological and Health Security” for an initial period of three years. It was designed to mitigate biological security hazards and to establish and improve necessary biosecurity capacities all over the world. After being evaluated in 2016 and 2019, it was extended until 2022 under the banner of the German Biosecurity Program.
It’s important to reiterate here that bacteria, viruses, and biological toxins may be used for peaceful research purposes but research can be dual-use and also used for either militarised bioweapons or terrorist purposes by both state and non-state actors.
The German Biosafety Program works in various countries as part of the Global Partnership (“GP”). The GP is made up of 30 active member countries and the EU.
Claiming to assist partner countries to minimise biological hazards and associated proliferation risks, the German Biosafety Program consists of several individual projects in Ukraine the implementation of which involves the following German institutions:
In cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (“GIZ”), an association for international cooperation, the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) Institute of Microbiology is currently conducting the “Ukrainian-German biosafety initiative for zoonoses risk management near the EU external border” project within the German Biosecurity Program.
This same project is listed in the Global Partnership Working Group (“GPWG”) 2018 Annual Project Report.
Another German-Ukraine biosecurity project funded by the German government under the German Biosafety Partnership Program is titled ‘Strengthening biosecurity in dealing with proliferation-critical animal disease pathogens in Ukraine’. It is a continuation of cooperation between three of the institutes of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (“FLI”) and two Ukrainian institutes in Kyiv.
The FLI is an “independent higher federal authority within the portfolio of the [German] Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture” which is divided into twelve specialist institutes at five locations.
The Ukrainian institutes are responsible for veterinary diagnostics and handling of highly pathogenic biosecurity-relevant pathogens.
The aim of this second German-Ukraine project is “to strengthen the capacity in partner countries to diagnose bacterial infections such as anthrax, brucellosis, glanders, and viral infections such as African Swine Fever and Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (“CCHF”) in animals.”
Regarding the CCHF portion of the project, the FLI has partnered with the Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forces. A partnership that stretches across several related projects. Projects include the retrieval, handling and study of highly dangerous pathogens. This poses the same dilemma as with the US’s DTRA financing and partnering in highly sensitive bio-forensic projects in Ukraine.
According to investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, the FLI was also involved in biological research on particularly dangerous pathogens in birds in 2019 and 2020. The main objective, according to the project description, was to sequence the genomes of orthomyxoviruses, which cause bird flu, and to discover new viruses in birds.
Gaytandzhieva also noted a DTRA funded project in 2020 the aim of which was to explore the potential of particularly dangerous pathogens that can be transmitted by migratory birds. The use of migratory birds to potentially transmit pathogens has been an important area of research conducted between the Smithsonian Institute and the US Department of Defence in the past.
Black & Veatch and Metabiota
Employees of the Ukrainian institute DNKIBSHM, which is one of those in a cooperation agreement with the FLI on the ‘Strengthening biosecurity in dealing with proliferation-critical animal disease pathogens in Ukraine’ project mentioned above, have participated in workshops and meetings organised by none other than Black & Veatch and Metabiota. The two American companies that have recently been linked to biolabs in Ukraine.
21st Century Wire has been able to identify at least four occasions where representatives of DNKIBSHM, at the invitation of Black & Veatch and Metabiota, participated in meetings, seminars or workshops:
In March/April 2019, two DNKIBSHM employees attended a meeting to launch the Joint Biological Research Project (“JDS”) of the UP-10 project.
In June 2019, the Deputy Director for Research of DNKIBSHM took part in the eleventh meeting of the Joint Working Group in Kyiv.
In October 2019, a DNKIBSHM employee participated in a seminar on writing grant applications.
In December 2019, two DNKIBSHM employees participated in the Workshop on the Results and Implementation of the CAP Model of the Joint Biological Research (“JAP”) UP-10 Project.
The above is extracted from the article ‘Germany’s Involvement in Military Biological Programs in Ukraine’, 21st Century Wire, 15 April 2022. 21st Century Wire’s research is extensive and we have only included a fraction of the first section. Their article continues to document relationships between:
the Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forces and The Kharkiv National Medical University;
the German Society for International Cooperation and the Ukrainian government;
the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine and the Public Health Institute of Ukraine, the Ministry of Health in Kyiv, as well as regional laboratories in Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odessa; and,
more …
21st Century Wire’s article concludes by directing readers to the article ‘Russian envoy points to proof of Germany’s military biological activity in Ukraine’ which states:
“Documents confirm that Germany was implementing its own military biological program in Ukraine, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Office and other International Organisations in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov said at a plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament.”
We shall look forward to the evidence that will support these Russian claims, and maybe then we can see if some of the concerns we have raised in this article are indeed justified, 21st Century Wire wrote. Read the full article HERE.
Update since 21st Century Wire published their article
During an interview with RT [as per the first article above] published on Saturday, 16 April, Russian Director of the Foreign Ministry Information and Press Department Maria Zakharova stated that one of the reasons why Berlin “is more active than other EU countries” in trying to attribute plans to use biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine to Russia is that Germany had, in coordination with the United States, a network of at least 30 bio-military laboratories on Ukrainian territory working on “biological agents potentially useful as biological weapons.”
Germany, like the US, has for many years been carrying out “military and biological activities” on the territory of Ukraine, she stated. (Cont’d…)
Bloody hell.