Briefing by Deputy Chief of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces Major General Aleksei Rtishc
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation continues to analyse the military and biological activities of the United States of America in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. We drew you attention to the relocation of unfinished Ukrainian projects on the territory of countries of the post-Soviet space and Southeast Asia.
Africa is now the zone of heightened interest. The U.S. Administration sees the region as an unlimited natural reservoir of dangerous infections' agents and a test ground for experimental medications.
After analysing the acquired documents, we understood the structure of the system created by the U.S. Administration to mitigate biological risks on the territory of other countries. This system has been successfully tested in Ukraine and Georgia and now it actively works on the African continent. The efforts within the framework of this system are directed at acquiring pathogens in endemic areas and natural foci, controlling and managing the biological situation for their own benefit. One of the tasks is analysing the epidemic situations along the borders of the geopolitical rivals in the presumed deployment areas of military contingents.
I would like to remind you that the deployment of the American system of biological controls goes according to a plan that was used before.
Concerns are primarily raised about regular outbreaks of, for example, anthrax and tularemia in one region, and foot-and-mouth disease and plague in the another. As a rule, these concerns are pointed out during meetings of the U.S. ambassadors with the representatives of the countries' ministries of health. American counterparts note that such outbreaks undermine the development of the region's economic potential. They question the training level of leadership and specialists, when it comes to neutralising biological threats, and state the need to improve their qualifications.
Against this background, it is proposed to establish a centre for disease diagnostics and testing of medical products within one or two years, which will study dangerous pathogens and mechanisms of their mutations, and develop and test modern vaccines.
It is also planned to involve local specialists in the research projects of the DoD Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) at the same time. It is proposed, that the U.S. are to prepare a three-month training programme for the centre's employees.
The integration of regional information systems into the US electronic disease surveillance system is discussed. The representatives of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) often advise their partners to accelerate that process and pay particular attention to ensuring the non-stop work of the necessary equipment and network communications.
5-10 million U.S. dollars are allocated to achieve these goals with a possible increase in funding up to 20 million dollars taking into account the implementation of the first phase of the project.
The U.S. government authorities and private contracting companies, including the so-called Big Pharma enterprises are involved to organise cooperation with the local relevant ministries.
The result of this selective support is the transition to American personnel training standards, transfer and generalisation of the information on the biological situation, degradation of national health care systems, imposition of suppliers of medical equipment and medications.
At the same time, the participating countries involved in this system lose their national sovereignty in the sphere of biosecurity and become fully dependent from the United States.
The documents at our disposal confirm that the U.S. biological warfare presence on the African continent is growing at a rapid pace.
Research of the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) actively work in the region. For example, branches of the National Naval Military Medical Center are stationed in Ghana and Djibouti, where active work is carried out in natural disease foci, isolation, and sequencing of pathogens.
The U.S. Army Military Medical Center in Kenya has deployed a network of field stations to monitor the spread of infectious diseases in Equatorial Africa.
In Nigeria, a joint medical research centre and a military medical laboratory of the armed forces of the republic have been established in 2024, with 10 U.S. DoD specialists permanently on staff.
A new $35 million laboratory facility is being completed in Senegal. The project involves the same Pentagon contractors as in the former Soviet Union - in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Among them are CH2M HILL, Black & Veatch, and Metabiota.
The Pentagon uses the relevant infrastructure and potential of African countries to conduct military-biological research. The U.S. Government customers are the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the National Security Agency, and the U.S. State Department. The main consumers of the research results are the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
At the same time, the United States does not disclose the ultimate goals of the experiments to partners, who are often unaware of the risks associated with the implementation of U.S. programmes.
Washington has deliberately exploited the economic problems of African states' healthcare systems to organise research. For example, the United States has channelled some 40 million U.S. dollars to support Guinea's health system. At the same time, the U.S. Administration initiated a project in the country to study Lassa Fever, a severe infectious disease for which there are no means of prevention or treatment. Special attention to this country is due to the U.S. desire to damage Russian-Guinean economic cooperation.
American-funded biological projects in Nigeria are aimed at combating HIV/AIDS. As volunteers, Nigerian nationals are participating in a clinical evaluation of antiviral drugs from the Pentagon-affiliated company Gilead. I would like to remind you that this pharmaceutical company conducted trials of its drugs on Ukrainian citizens.
This year, the Pentagon started active research of highly dangerous infectious agents in Zambia. At the same time, funding was directed at improving the capacity of military medical facilities and retraining medical personnel.
The United States is working with South Africa to establish a collaborative study of the monkeypox virus at the South African Institute for Vector-borne Diseases. Washington has donated 10,000 doses of a vaccine for the disease, produced by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic, which has not received final approval from the WHO and can be used only in high-risk individuals.
The Pathogen Genomics Initiative is studying patterns of infection and resistance of pathogens to medical drugs. More than 20 biological sites in 18 African countries are involved in the project.More than 20 biological sites in 18 African countries are involved in the project. Funding is provided through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as contractors and philanthropic foundations that work closely with the Pentagon.
It is noteworthy that bioinformatics specialists are involved in the research, whose duties include editing the genomes of the identified microorganisms, which may lead to enhanced functions of pathogens.
With the African Centre for Disease Control's African Union Biosecurity and Biosafety Strategy scheduled for adoption in 2025, the U.S. has intensified consultations with countries in the region to ensure Washington-friendly provisions in the document.
The Americans are particularly concerned about the work being carried out by Russia and China with the countries of the continent to expose the true content of the U.S. military-biological programmes in connection with the possible restriction of the Pentagon's activities in this area.
While the stated goals are to monitor infectious disease and assist developing countries, in practice we see a buildup of U.S. biological-military capabilities that circumvent BWC commitments.
There is a clear trend: pathogens that fall within the Pentagon's area of interest subsequently become pandemic, and American pharmaceutical companies become the beneficiaries.
An example is infections such as yellow fever, monkeys fever, and Rift Valley fever, whose outbreak has been detected in Cairo, where the U.S. Navy biological warfare laboratory was based.
We have already drawn your attention to the real customers of military-biological projects and their attempts to work under the cover of contractors. For example, the Metabiota proposal on the slide is for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to train infectious disease specialists in Kenya and Uganda. The document indicates that pathogens in the African continent are being studied by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and in order to give the appearance of humanitarian interaction, the U.S. International Development Agency.
I would like to remind you that Metabiota's activity has now been discontinued in Africa. According to a report by an international panel of experts involved in fighting the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, company personnel concealed the fact that Pentagon employees were involved in the work. The main purpose of this activity was the isolation of virulent strains and their subsequent smuggling. As a result, samples of the Ebola virus were smuggled by representatives of the company and sent to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
The slide lists the organisers and participants in illicit biological-military activities within African countries. They include servicemen of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, staff from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) regional offices, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Africa, and representatives from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. These include:
Alexis Robinson is the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency Attaché for South, Central and East Africa, who has been involved in training local specialists in DTRA operations in exchange for intelligence of interest to the Pentagon.
Helina Meri and Mark Breda are regional directors of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Nigeria and Tanzania. They acted as organisers of the collection of biomaterial from the local population for the benefit of the U.S. military, as well as the testing of unlicensed drugs.
Jane Wachira is the chief executive officer of the Kenya Veterinary Vaccines Production Institute. She facilitated unrestricted access for U.S. specialists to Kenya's collection of highly dangerous pathogens.
John Nikoimo is the head of the Special Operations Command in Kenya. He supervised the DTRA programme to enhance the capability of Kenya's defence forces to handle chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear substances.
As a result of the analysis of the documentation received, more than 30 persons were identified, including officials of government bodies, employees of intermediary organisations and private companies.
It should be noted that the information previously voiced during briefings by the Russian Defence Ministry about the U.S. military-biological activities on the African continent was heard by the foreign media and the expert community.
Relevant comments were posted in the European and American media, as well as on information portals in the Middle East region.
Particular attention is paid to the relocation of unfinished military-biological research from the territory of Ukraine. Thus, the Daily Telegraph noted that: ‘... the Pentagon is forced to relocate unfinished research within the framework of Ukrainian projects to other regions...’. A similar publication is presented on the website of the Indonesian agency Asia Today.
The articles in The Diplomat and Bulawayo expressed concern about the closed operations of American military biologists in natural hotspots in a number of African states, as well as the Pentagon's plans to deploy a network of biolaboratories.
A number of publications have expressed concern about the activities of the U.S. private military campaign Bancroft on the territory of the Central African Republic on behalf of DTRA. The French RFI agency linked such activity of PMCs with an attempt to protect the main coordinator of military-biological projects from public attention.
The Geopolitics online edition published an article on the joint activities of DTRA and the U.S. non-profit organisation RTI International to monitor infectious diseases in Africa, which, according to the publication, is a component of the Pentagon's broader ‘biological espionage’ initiative.
In addition, the regional media have paid close attention to the fact that clinical trials of medicines that have not been approved by the WHO have been conducted on the population of African countries.
Thus, against the backdrop of Russia's progressive strengthening of its position in Africa, including in the field of biosecurity, the United States seeks to prevent the weakening of its influence in the region. I would like to recall once again Washington's non-transparent working methods and warn our African partners against cooperating with the United States in the military biological field.
As practice shows, such interaction results in the loss of national sovereignty in biosafety and a worsening of the disease situation.
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation will continue to analyse the incoming information and will keep you informed.
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