Invasion of Ukraine: "Bioweapon Labs": Yet another Campaign of Calumny?

[Sukla Sen]

In this context, the basic fact that must be kept in mind is that a "bio lab" - handling dangerous pathogens, and a "bioweapon lab" are not necessarily coterminous.

A bioweapon lab, which is actually banned by the Biological Weapons Convention, weaponises these pathogens - i.e. these are cultured and developed in order to be used against specific targets, while a standard bio lab deals with dangerous pathogens for legitimate purposes e.g. for fighting current and possible new diseases.

As an illustration, the two Chinese labs in Wuhan, a region where the SARS-COV-2 was first located were not identified as bioweapon labs by any responsible quarter despite harsh exchanges of various allegations surrounding the outbreak of a new zoonotic disease.

<<At a considerable risk to their own safety, 10 Russian biologists, including researchers who remain in Russia, have publicly accused the Russian government of lying about having proof that biological weapons were being developed in Ukrainian labs funded by the United States.

According to the biologists, documents presented to the public last week by Russia’s defense ministry as supposed evidence of covert “bioweapons labs” under Pentagon control in Ukraine actually describe relatively harmless collections of pathogens used for public health research. The comprehensive review of the documents by experts who understand both the science and the Cyrillic alphabet took on new importance on Wednesday, as President Vladimir Putin cited the imaginary threat of weapons of mass destruction near Russia’s borders as a [post-facto] justification for the invasion of Ukraine.>>

(Excepted from: <https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/russia-ukraine-bioweapons-misinformation/>.)