The American authorities previously admitted that Ukraine hosts "biological research facilities", expressing concerns they could come under the control of Russian forces. The Russian Defence Ministry on Thursday announced that the US-funded biological labs located in Ukraine were conducting experiments with bat coronavirus samples.

"According to the documents, the American side planned to conduct work on pathogens of birds, bats, and reptiles in Ukraine in 2022, with a further transition to studying the possibility of carrying African swine fever and anthrax", chief spokesman for the Ministry of Defence Major General Igor Konashenkov said. [...] "The purpose of this - and other Pentagon-funded biological research in Ukraine, was to create a mechanism for the covert spread of deadly pathogens", he added.

In addition, the facilities were studying the possible spread of pathogens via wild birds, migrating between Russia, Ukraine, and other countries in the region. The Russian Defence Ministry will soon publish the documents received from staff at the Ukrainian biolaboratories, as well as the results of their examination, Konashenkov said.

Sputnik International: US Studied Bat Coronaviruses in Secret Biolabs in Transcaucasia, China: The Pentagon conducted studies into bat coronaviruses not only in Ukraine-based bio labs, but also in many other countries, including Georgia and China, according to documents published on the US government orders portal and seen by Sputnik. The documents showed that since 2017, such studies had been carried out by a secret US laboratory at the Richard Lugar Centre for Public Health Research in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. At the same time, it also turned out that the contractor company for the US Department of Defence (DOD) had studied bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China, for several years (until March 2020), when the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Glen Greenwald: Self-anointed "fact-checkers” in the U.S. corporate press have spent two weeks mocking as disinformation and a false conspiracy theory the claim that Ukraine has biological weapons labs, either alone or with U.S. support. They never presented any evidence for their ruling — how could they possibly know? and how could they prove the negative? — but nonetheless they invoked their characteristically authoritative, above-it-all tone of self-assurance and self-arrogated right to decree the truth, definitively labelling such claims false.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed last Tuesday that Ukrainian authorities destroyed inventories of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly pathogens in illegal US biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine operated and funded by the US Department of Defense to prevent them from falling into Russian hands. US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland confirmed the reports. These laboratories are in violation of Article I of the UN Biological Weapons Convention. This violation makes the US government a clear cut War Criminal subject to the death sentence under the Nuremberg Laws established by the United States Government itself. What was Washington going to do with these pathogens? Which populations were going to be recipients of these gifts from Washington? Russia? Europeans and blamed on Russia? Was there to be a new outbreak to be used to destroy whatever remains of civil liberty in the Western world?

The United States has been focusing on potential ways its NATO allies could deliver combat jets to Ukraine while not escalating the conflict with Russia, as Moscow's special operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine is underway. Meanwhile, Russia has voiced concerns after a dozen US bio-laboratories in Ukraine that could be developing biological weapons have been discovered by the Russian military. And Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky is ready for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict in Ukraine and direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his office said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the Diplomatic Forum in Turkey's Antalya on Thursday.

Deutsche Welle: Russian, Ukrainian foreign ministers meet for first time since invasion

Professor Andrew Owen is the person who allegedly edited the critical Andrew Hill paper on Ivermectin. He was also in receipt of consultancy fees from pharmaceutical companies with competing products. As it turns out, Andrew Owen is a Professor of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and co-Director of the Centre of Excellence in Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) at the University of Liverpool. He is also scientific advisor to the WHO’s COVID-19 Guideline Development Group. Just days before Dr. Hill’s paper was to be published, a $40M grant from Unitaid, the paper’s sponsor, was given to CELT —of which Owen is the project lead. “The $40 million contract was actually a commercial agreement between Unitaid, the University of Liverpool and Tandem Nano Ltd (a start-up company that commercializes ‘Solid Lipid Nanoparticle’ delivery mechanisms)— for which Andrew Owen is a top shareholder,” says Harper. Furthermore, Harper writes that, “Andrew Owen is prolific in the art of receiving money from pharmaceutical companies. He’s received research funding from ViiV Healthcare, Merck, Janssen, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Tibotec, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb.”