US intelligence services, pharmaceutical companies involved in military bio studies in Ukraine: Russian Defense Ministry

MOSCOW -- The Russian Defense Ministry disclosed on Saturday information of US high-ranking participants in the military biological studies in Ukraine, many of whom are associated with US intelligence services or pharmaceutical companies.

The ministry has a document with names of all the key US officials supervising Ukraine's military biological programs, Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, said during a briefing.

The participants include Kenneth Myers, former director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency with the US Department of Defense; Tara O'Toole, executive vice president of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency; Thomas Frieden, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and others, according to Kirillov.

The executors of the military biological programs are the Ukrainian Mechnikov Anti-Plague Research Institute, the Institute of Veterinary Medicine, and the Lviv Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene, he said.

Kirillov said in June that the Pentagon admitted the United States had supported 46 biological research facilities in Ukraine.