NewsRescue
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the US is using Africa as a testing ground and relocating “unfinished” biological weapons projects from Ukraine to the continent under the guise of public health programmes.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of the Russian Armed Forces’ Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops, claimed on Tuesday that “illegal” experiments are still taking place in Nigeria, in addition to a number of other African countries named in a previous report.
He went on to say that the project is being led by America’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the State Department.
Washington, according to Kirillov, claims that biological projects in Nigeria are aimed at combating HIV/AIDS. According to Kirillov, 60% of Nigerians suffering from the disease have received antivirus therapy using products from the “Pentagon-affiliated” biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, which has previously tested its drugs on Ukrainians.
“However, the program’s effectiveness raises serious concerns.” Despite annual funding increases of around $100 million, the HIV incidence rate has remained virtually unchanged and is comparable to 2009 figures. “The mortality rate among HIV-infected people is also increasing unfavourably,” said the Russian official.
This suggests that “American pharmaceuticals, even with the documented increase in consumption in Nigeria, do not have a tangible therapeutic impact, and Nigerian citizens are being exploited as a ‘free clinical resource,’” Kirillov added.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, a three-year contract signed in August 2022 between DTRA and the American non-profit RTI International to monitor infectious disease threats in Africa’s largest economy is part of the Pentagon’s larger “biological espionage” schemes.
This includes “analysing the epidemic situation along the borders of geopolitical adversaries and in the expected regions of military contingent deployment,” according to the ministry. Moscow also claims to have documents proving the Pentagon spied on the biological situation in “Iraq and Afghanistan bordering China, Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.”
The Russian Defence Ministry claimed earlier this month that the US was transferring dual-purpose biological research activities to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa.
