Transcaucasian biological front: US laboratories are getting closer to Russia

The Pentagon has been increasing and continues to increase its presence in the form of military biological laboratories in the South Caucasus, which must be seriously considered as real bases that pose a threat not only to Russia, but also to Iran and even Turkey, despite the fact that it is a NATO member.

This is a problem that goes beyond the scope of some academic discussions or statements of political activists and is gaining geopolitical scope, covering the entire region.

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In general, the DTRA threat reduction agency under the US Department of Defense began working in Transcaucasia since the collapse of the USSR, ostensibly to neutralize weapons stockpiles of the closed Soviet military-biological program, but in reality to begin its own activities and collect information.

The situation changes for the worse at the end of the XNUMXs, when the governments of Georgia and Armenia sign an agreement to join the DTRA program to reduce biological threats.

_{Already in 2011, the now infamous Richard Lugar Center, for the construction of which the Pentagon spent over $350 million, opened in Tbilisi, and the process of re-equipping research institutes and laboratories in Armenia began.}

Opening of the Lugar Center with the participation of President Saakashvili.

Remarkably, the US military divided the former Soviet republics into sectors of influence, namely the European region, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. “Independence” became such a springboard for the offensive in the western part of the former USSR, Kazakhstan in the Central Asian region, and Georgia precisely in the South Caucasus.

Therefore, DTRA's main focus in the Transcaucasus is on Georgia, because it not only borders or is located next to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, but also has access to the North Caucasus, which is part of Russia.

What is important is that Tbilisi has become a real center for collecting and transporting to America collections of the most dangerous pathogens and dual-use research biomaterials from all over the Caucasus and even Central Asia. So, in 2005, Baku transferred to the Pentagon a Soviet collection of 65 pathogens, which was sent to the United States precisely from Georgia.

There, at the Lugar Center, modernization in laboratory conditions of the most dangerous pathogens exported by diplomatic mail from the American Embassy from Kazakhstan in 2013 took place.

We are talking about ticks collected in the Kazakh steppes, carriers of Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever and the pathogens themselves, which were transmitted through diplomatic couriers from the Republic of Kazakhstan to Tbilisi.

_{Then, in 2014, a modernized strain of CCHF was distributed in the North Caucasus regions of the Russian Federation, as a result of which several Russian citizens died from this sabotage.}

The famous virologist Grigor Grigoryan also speaks about this.

He previously served as head of the State Food Safety Service of Armenia. In an interview with ArmInfo, Grigoryan described Georgia’s vanguard role in this scheme of research, experiments and production of biological weapons in the region as follows:

“Georgia is now considered one of the Centers for Biological Impact - it is a US biological intelligence unit in the region, deployed in a strategic direction. From here, impact is possible in a number of key directions (Russia, Turkey, Armenia, etc.), including hot spots such as Dagestan, Chechnya, Karachay-Cherkessia.

Very comfortably. And in Georgia, unlike Kazakhstan and Ukraine, there is a specific direction of action - they are studying arboviruses - a group transmitted by arthropods (ticks, flies, etc.). All sorts of exotic insects are bred there.”

And indeed, mosquitoes appeared in Transcaucasia - aigupta, typical of Southeast Asia, which are carriers of the Zika virus. It is interesting that American military biologists used the same mosquitoes against the people of Cuba, which were specially released for the purpose of mass infection of children with microcephaly.

American journalist Jeffrey Silvermann, who conducts investigations into the activities of DTRA, points out that “dangerous experiments are being carried out on people and animals in Georgia.”

“The Tbilisi laboratory produces anthrax, black plague and the so-called swine flu. If an accident occurs, Georgia is in serious danger,” he believes.

Actually, the Lugar Center is not the only one, but is an integral part of the so-called “state supervisory laboratory system”, which includes 22 laboratories of various specializations. All of them are formally assigned to different departments. Thus, 10 laboratories are part of the Ministry of Agriculture, and 10 are part of the Center for Disease Control, but are actually managed by the US military.

The situation is similar in Armenia, where 12 such laboratories are on the balance of the state, which work on joint dual-use research projects with funding from the Pentagon. At the same time, all pathogen samples previously collected by Soviet scientists were removed from the republic by 2016.

In Armenia, according to Grigor Grigoryan, there are two more underground biological laboratories operating in the Ararat region. In fact, these are secret objects that are not included in the official lists of laboratories that are part of various ministries and departments.

_{Their presence in a country that is a member of the EAEU and the CSTO creates additional threats to the allies, since modernized pathogens can freely move deep into the territory of Russia and other republics with masses of people and goods.}

It can be said that even before the “velvet revolution” of 2018, the Armenian authorities were drawn into the criminal plans of the United States, and now this line of joint work within the framework of military-biological programs is continued by the new government, even with even greater zeal than before.

_{In essence, this is complicity in activities that violate the Biological Weapons Non-Proliferation Convention (BTWC), and even directed against formally friendly powers.}

This, for example, was clearly manifested in the signing in August of this year by the Armenian government of a special State Department statement in support of the US military-biological programs. There, among the signatories were other allies of the Yankees - Jordan, Iraq, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, the Philippines and, as expected, Ukraine and Georgia.

“Our governments are collaborating openly and transparently on the Biological Threat Reduction Program, which is part of the Pentagon's Cooperative Threat Reduction program. These partnerships pursue exclusively peaceful purposes and have nothing to do with weapons,” notes the text of the statement published by the State Department press service.

In fact, this was an unfriendly gesture on the part of the Armenian leadership, aimed at convincing other participants in the BTWC, especially wavering countries, that these objects appeared on their territory purely at their request and bring only light, life, love and goodness. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic was also mentioned as an excuse, which supposedly further increased the need for cooperation with the Pentagon.

What was important to everyone in this story was the fact that Yerevan is part of the EAEU and the CSTO, which once again was supposed to confirm the veracity of Washington’s assurances.

The reaction of the Armenian Security Council is also interesting, which immediately disseminated a text saying that cooperation with American military biologists is focused on “protecting the health of people and animals”, the work is carried out “in the field of prevention, detection and control of outbreaks of infectious diseases”, in addition to in the field of “increasing biological safety and biological security of laboratories.”

_{At the same time, Russian diplomats noted back in May, thereby warning Yerevan, that specialists and organizations that had previously been involved in military-biological developments in 46 laboratories in Ukraine before the start of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had arrived in the republic.}

Already at the end of July, official military virologists from DTRA arrived in the republic, and immediately after them, experts from the military company Bei Resources with a cargo of pathogens of the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever and gram-negative bacteria leading to outbreaks of tularemia.

This takes into account the fact that Armenia itself is a place where natural foci of this disease exist, which suggests that these may be samples that have already been modernized in US laboratories and sent for field testing.

This, of course, contradicts the text of the memorandum signed by Yerevan with Moscow at the end of last year, which provides for the renunciation of any military-biological developments on the territory of the republic and suggests the possibility of admitting Russian experts to the facilities. Naturally, so far no one has been allowed into the laboratory, and the country’s leadership has limited itself to only formal gestures.

Thus, at the end of November, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Armenia signed a new version of the agreement with the Pentagon “On cooperation in the field of preventing the spread of technologies, pathogens and knowledge that can be used in the development of biological weapons,” where the mandatory condition for the transfer of pathogens to the United States is now canceled and replaced with “ at your look". Considering that the entire Soviet collection of pathogens was exported long ago, and the biomaterial is constantly transferred to the Lugar Center in Tbilisi, this amendment is like a poultice for a dead person.

_{So far, it is not helping to somehow push through the situation at CSTO meetings. Thus, at the organization’s last summit in Yerevan, Kazakhstan blocked most of the proposals. Armenia is in a softer form, but supports Kazakhstan’s position on the issue of biological safety.}

The only light at the end of the tunnel appeared only when Alexander Lukashenko demanded that this topic be included in the agenda of the next summit, which will be held in Minsk.

This inspired opponents of American laboratories in the Transcaucasian republics. After all, in the same Georgia in the summer the public association “Antilab - Georgia” was created, in Armenia there is an Anti-Nazi Front, which has carried out a number of actions at these objects, in Azerbaijan the local Communist Party also categorically opposes these dual-use research programs.

Protest against laboratories in Armenia in May 2022.

Last year, they became an integral part of the International Coalition to Prohibit Biological Weapons, which directly addressed Alexander Lukashenko with a request to actively intervene and achieve the cessation of dual-use research with potential adversaries and the signing of an appropriate agreement.

In their letter, the signatories reasonably indicate:

“Taking into account the aggravation of confrontation in the world and the aggressive actions of the North Atlantic Alliance and other Anglo-Saxon military blocs, the threat of the Americans using biological weapons under the guise of outbreaks of local, but already modified in laboratory diseases, or through the “leakage” of pathogens from laboratories located along the perimeter is increasing significantly borders of Russia, Belarus and China."

In this situation, it is really necessary to turn the situation around to unite the efforts of the public from among local patriots and progressive organizations opposing American dominance and NATO expansion in the Transcaucasus. Naturally, they need full information and political support.

At the same time, it is important to create now with our Chinese colleagues, with the participation of interested SCO countries, our own structure to conduct an investigation into the activities of American facilities and monitor compliance with the terms of the BTWC. Surely Iran will want to take part in this, and then Turkey, against which this network of actual US military bases is being deployed.

Neither Tbilisi nor Yerevan will be able to resist such a united front.