Russia says Pentagon directly involved in bioweapon development in Ukraine

MOSCOW - The US Department of Defense was directly involved in developing biological weapon components in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.

Documents received from Ukrainian employees working at the laboratories were studied by Russian experts and have shown that Ukrainian biological projects were directly developed and approved by the Pentagon, the ministry's spokesman Igor Konashenkov said during a briefing.

One of these projects aimed to carry out molecular analysis of particularly dangerous infections endemic in Ukraine and involved sampling pathogens from old animal burial sites to obtain new anthrax strains.

Furthermore, a pharmaceutical company contracted by the Pentagon worked with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to test unregistered medical drugs on Ukrainian service members, according to Konashenkov.