8 Jul, 2022 14:04

Russia makes new Hunter Biden-related bio-lab claims

Moscow, citing a captured document, has claimed a Pentagon contractor was planning to study the deadly Ebola virus in Ukraine

Metabiota, a company financed by Hunter Biden’s fund, had set its sights on southwestern Ukraine to research the deadly Ebola virus, which is endemic to some parts of Africa, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed in its Friday briefing. Military officials cited a document that Russian troops had allegedly captured in the Eastern European country.

Mechnikov National University, which is located in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, had supposedly been chosen by the American firm for its program.

The Russian military says its troops captured a document in Ukraine compiled by the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency – a body tasked with countering weapons of mass destruction. Covering the period from 2005 until 2016, the report purportedly outlines plans for the further development of military projects in Ukraine.

Metabiota and its involvement with the Ebola virus also feature in the document, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

According to the ministry, Metabiota, a Pentagon contractor, had previously participated in dealing with the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.However, the company’s main objective had supposedly been collecting “highly virulent” strains of the virus and transporting them to the US.

The Russian military went on to claim that, considering the “clear discrepancy” between Metabiota’s activities and the actual fight against the deadly disease, Jarbas Barbosa, then-assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which is a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), had allegedly recommended that the firm’s staff be withdrawn. The official was supposedly concerned that cooperation with the US company would undermine the WHO’s reputation.

“Seeing that the disease is not endemic and, moreover, has never been identified in Ukraine, a logical question arises as to the necessity of such research and its true goals,” Russian Defense Ministry officials noted.

Moscow claims all of this is “part of the US strategy to transfer research of particularly dangerous pathogens to third countries.”

Russian officials have also suggested that American society should get acquainted with the story and possibly raise questions regarding the US government’s activities, which are apparently in breach of the Biological Weapons Convention.

This is not the first time that officials in Moscow have accused the US of conducting secret studies involving deadly viruses and bacteria on Ukrainian soil.

Washington has consistently dismissed such allegations as fake.

https://www.rt.com/news/558642-russian-defense-ministry-us-pathogen-research/

8 Jul, 2022 12:45

EU will be held responsible for starving millions around the world – tycoon

A sanctioned Russian fertilizer mogul warns that sanctions targeting food and energy are ‘economic weapons of mass destruction’

Sanctions imposed on Russian and Belarusian fertilizer producers are akin to weapons of mass destruction in the scale of the damage they will likely cause over the next few years, the founder of chemical giant EuroChem has claimed.

“The EU sanctions mean suffering, famine and migration flows for many hundreds of millions of people,” Andrey Melnichenko said in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Die Weltwoche on Thursday.

“Sanctions targeting food and energy are economic weapons of mass destruction. They hit innocent people the worst. I have no doubt that billions of people will feel its effects,” he warned.

Suffering people will want to hold those responsible accountable, and the EU won’t be able to shift its culpability, the businessman added. It was not Russia or the US, but EU members like Lithuania and Estonia, and also European leaders Germany, France and Italy, which chose to disrupt the operation of his chemical empire with sanctions, he explained.

EuroChem, a leading fertilizer producer, is headquartered in Switzerland, where Melnichenko also lives with his family. The EU and Switzerland targeted the company and its owner with sanctions aimed at hurting the Russian economy in retaliation for Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

Melnichenko argued he personally was unjustly punished for being a rich Russian, dismissing claims that he had any influence on the Russian government. He warned of the catastrophic consequences that the “carpet-bombing” of the Russian economy will cause over a few years.

He assessed that EuroChem products helped feed almost 274 million people. With its fertilizers not produced and sold due to sanctions, the effect would be far worse than what is happening now over the cut in grain exports from Ukraine, he said.

“The G7 countries, with their one billion citizens, see themselves as the world's moral leaders. But they have overridden the interests of the other seven billion people,” he said.

Russia and its ally Belarus, another target for Western sanctions, account for 17% of global fertilizer supply, the tycoon said. Should that supply disappear from the market, the world “will lose food for almost 750 million people after just a few harvests,” he warned. Exports from those two countries already dropped by 30-40% amid the stand-off with the West, and it’s the most vulnerable people who are paying the price, Melnichenko added.

“We don't know whether people in the third world are already dying, or if they are ‘just’ starving and migrating away,” he said. With social tensions skyrocketing over hunger and fuel shortages, there will be a surge of violence, he predicted. “Perhaps jihad will raise its black flag again. These are not wild theories, but facts.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/558640-eu-sanctions-global-famine/