https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/why-does-the-us-need-biolabs-at-russian-borders–2714884
==The CitizenNews
Why does the US need biolabs at Russian borders?==
FRIDAY AUGUST 21 2020
Russia has called on the United States to sit down and bilaterally discuss issues related to America’s military and biological activities along the Russian borders.
This came in an August 6 briefing statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press department deputy director Alexey Zaitsev.
According to him, stepped-up military and biological activities of the United States and its allies outside their national borders, including in the post-Soviet space, raises grave questions with the Russian Foreign Ministry as regards respecting theBiological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC).
"Under the guise of providing sanitary and epidemiological assistance, the Pentagon put on stream the construction and modernization of microbiological laboratories in the former Soviet republics.
It is not possible to control the procedure or degree of these facilities’ involvement in closed research programs under the US military," he explained.
The diplomat stressed that the strains of infectious pathogens obtained by US military biologists could be used in the future for purposes incompatible with the interests of the national security of Russia and other CIS countries.
In particular, Zaitsev went on to say, Russia proposes including information on military biological programs implemented abroad in the annual reports submitted by the states Parties to the Convention as a confidence building measure, but the "American colleagues seem unwilling to share such information," reports Russian media.
Remarkably, Moscow's call came amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which had already claimed the lives of over 700 thousand people around the world.
Meanwhile, hundreds of US biolaboratories located in different countries under the guise of harmless research centers engaged in allegedly civil developments, proved unexceptional in combating coronavirus.
Let's recall that following the USSR collapse, US biolabs were being created in the territories of newly formed republics on an all too regular basis.
These labs are in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. At that, the number of laboratories along Russian borders is only growing with every passing year.
According to official statements, the establishment of a US biolab network in the former Soviet republics has a higher purpose of overseeing epidemiological policy and research in those countries, preventing the spread of information potentially related to biological weapons, and thus minimizing the biological threat to America.