(NewsInsights.org) – A top Russian military official has accused the US of transferring bioweapon research previously underway in Ukraine’s liberated territories to at least five different African countries. During an interview with the state-owned Russian News Agency TASS on June 25, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov also claimed that the Pentagon was forced to move the projects after Russia forced similar projects in the area to a halt.
Kirillov, who serves as Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops, said that the US government immediately turned its sights toward Africa when that happened. According to Russian intelligence documents, the Pentagon is already in the process of rapidly expanding its military-biological presence in five specific countries on the continent: Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.
According to Kirillov, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the US Department of State directly sponsor most of these projects. He accused the government of subcontracting out each project to private companies and “Big Pharma” firms to obscure connections and the research’s true purpose.
“Washington uses outside actors to hide the objectives of research,” he said. “These are contracting and intermediary organizations.”
That shortlist allegedly includes at least 20 American-owned companies, including Quicksilver and EkoHealth Alliance. However, Kirillov drew special attention to the San Francisco startup Metabiota, which he says was forced to shut down in Africa after its projects after “too many questions about its methods arose from national governments.”
According to Kirillov, Metabiota also coordinated with the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) to illegally export ebola virus samples from the country. He claims the agency had employees sneak them out on their behalf.
Kirillov cited at least two recent examples of US agencies coordinating with officials in African countries on bioweapons research in recent years. In October 2023, he said, USAMRIID researchers carried out extensive studies on hantavirus in Kenya’s bat population. One year prior, US military personnel and biologists allegedly tested the effects of antimalarial compounds on local populations in the same regions.
The State Department, Defense Department, and US Department of Health and Human Services are now working with the CDC in Africa to develop new laboratories, said Kirillov. He issued a strong warning to leaders in Africa against this kind of collaboration, claiming that past experiences proved it would only backfire on them.
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