Pentagon-Ukraine Bio Labs: The Hunter Biden Connection
Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire
It would be an understatement to say the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announcement of US-funded bio labs in Ukraine and concerns over the development of biological weapons, had its fair share of attention over the last few weeks. Only the story doesn’t end there, with the trail of evidence leading directly to the US political, military, intelligence, and pharmaceutical establishments.
Undoubtedly, this story has all the ingredients for a giant international scandal, and when juxtaposed with the current war in Ukraine, it has the potential to influence the diplomatic, political and military trajectories of the conflict.
Still, Washington continues to deny any involvement. When pressed on the matter, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby referred to the Russian claims as“a bunch of malarkey.” However, despite the many evasions and obfuscations from US officials, the facts of this case remain overwhelming.
While US officials and western mainstream media quickly denied the existence of any US involvement in these biological facilities, their claims are confounded by the release overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including the existence of 15 official US documents previously posted, and recently removed from the US Embassy in Kyiv’s official website, confirming the presence of at least 11 bio labs, plus 2 other new labs which were due to be constructed in Odessa and Kyiv, These US bio labs situated in Ukraine were established between 2009 and 2012, and paid for by the US Department of Defense (DOD) and the DTRA Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The program appears to be an offspring of the 1991 Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act. Amongst other things, the act was designed to reduce the risk of bioterrorism and prevent the proliferation of biological weapons, including extremely dangerous pathogens.
This was followed by a 2005 bi-lateral treaty agreement between the United States and Ukraine on weapons proliferation, signed by representatives of the US Department of Defense and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
Izvestia published on 26 May 2020 an article which raises concerns about the existence of “eight laboratories that were built and modernized with the participation of the US Defense Special Weapons Agency (DTRA) as part of the Special Biological Engagement Program between 2005 and 2014 and which provided “assistance to Ukraine in preventing the spread of dangerous pathogens.”
The article followed claims by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, who warned on 17 April 2020, that “the United States may be developing deadly pathogens” in its “overseas laboratories,” adding that, “the United States is trying to strengthen its biological presence, including in the post-Soviet space.”
Things got slightly more serious when Commander of the Russian CBRN (Nuclear, Radiological, Biological and Chemical) defense force, Igor Kirillov explained how part of its UP-4 project with the participation of laboratories in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa, the United States appeared to be working to develop potentially powerful biological weapons. One of the purposes of the project appears to involve the spread of particularly dangerous infections through migratory birds.
Kirillov added, “Considering that Ukraine has a unique geographical position where transcontinental migration routes intersect, they were studying 145 biological species within the framework of this project,” adding that “at least two species of migratory birds were identified, the migration routes of which pass through Russian territories.”
According to Kirillov, it was planned to spread particularly dangerous infectious diseases with the help of birds. In particular, it refers to a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza and Newcastle disease.
“Of all methods developed in the United States to destabilize the epidemiological situation, this one is one of the most reckless and irresponsible ones, as it does not allow to control the further development of the situation,” the official said. “With a high degree of probability, we can say that one of the tasks of the United States and its allies was to create bio agents that could selectively target various ethnic groups of the population,” Igor Kirillov concluded.
The Russian Ministry of Defense added that the obtained documents confirmed the transfer of many biological samples taken from Ukrainian people abroad. For example, Germany is funding project No. 68727 EN to study the pathogens of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and Hantaviruses. As part of the project, hundreds of samples of blood serum taken from residents of various regions of Ukraine were transferred to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. The samples belonged only to the Slavic ethnic group.
Additionally, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov, added that, “the American side planned to conduct works on bird, bat and reptile pathogens subsequently proceeding to researching the possibility of them transmitting African swine fever and anthrax.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke frankly on the bio lab revelations:
On the scandalous topic of US biolabs in Ukraine, Lavrov described some of the dangerous pathogens that were being experimented with there, including those “which could be related to the ethnic groups living in the east of Ukraine and in neighboring regions of Russia.” In other words, he implied that America was plotting to create bioweapons that would specifically target people with the Russian genome, which would then have been used by its ethno–fascist proxies in Kiev for genocidal purposes.
Furthermore, “the Americans some years ago decided that it is too dangerous to do these things on their own soil. So they moved all these threatening and dangerous activities to other countries, and more and more they concentrate their research and experiments around the borders of the Russian Federation and China.” This clearly proves that the US’ Hybrid War against the dual engines of the emerging Multipolar World Order has a crucial biological warfare component.
Needless to say, the presence of these programs and the fact they are being funded by the Pentagon, will be regarded as a national security threat to the Russian Federation.
In a Donbass Insider article we can read the following: “UKR_Leaks provide a unique insight into the procedure for destroying the strains studied in biological laboratories in Ukraine, following the launch of the Russian military operation. One of the documents indicates that on 25 February 2022, the day after the launch of the Russian invasion, the following strains were completely destroyed in a laboratory in Kharkov.” This may include (but not limited to) the following pathogens:
- Candida albicans (a fungus that causes candidiasis)
- Escherichia coli (bacteria that can cause ulcers, urinary tract infections and even prostatitis)
- Serratia marcescens (a bacterium that can cause urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections)
- Shigella sonnei and Shigella flexneri (bacteria that cause shigellosis, an intestinal infection)
- Salmonella Typhimurium (causes intestinal infections)
- Proteus vulgaris
- Enterobacter aerogenes (hospital-acquired infections)
- Staphylococcus aureus (Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause food poisoning, as well as local or generalized infections up to and including sepsis)
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa (highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause hospital-acquired infections)
- Proteus mirabilis (urinary tract and skin infections)
- Klebsiella pneumonia (pneumonia and urinary tract infections, but a virulent strain from Asia can infect the central nervous system and has a high mortality rate)
- Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum (dangerous if immune system is depressed)
- Corynebacterium xerosis
- Corynebacterium diphtheriae (causes diphtheria)
- Bacillus licheniformis
- Bacillus stearothermophilus
According to reports acknowledged by the Russian Ministry of Defense, 232 containers housing the pathogen of leptospirosis, 30 containers of tularemia, 10 of brucellosis and five of plague, have all been destroyed in Kyiv.
The Russian authorities believe that in total, there are 30 such biological laboratories based in Ukraine which are financed and supervised by the Americans (with a budget of over 200 million dollars).
Finally, on the 11th March 2022, Sergeĭ Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation requested a meeting with the United Nation Security Council for Russian United Nations Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia to elaborate further and divulge findings pertaining to their intelligence report on the alleged US-backed Ukrainian Bioweapon Program.
From an investigative point of view, we must therefore take a closer look into the companies entrusted by the United States and Ukrainian government to undertake the construction and management of these highly sensitive bio labs. It is difficult, if not impossible to believe that such a vast project could receive the go-ahead without broad political support in the US. When it comes to government programs, a general rule of thumb is that where there is political support, there are powerful corporate lobbies and NGOs. Hence, we must take a look at the corporate contractors who supply the DoD, DTRA and USAID in order to understand their background, and where any conflicts of interest may have occurred.
Through these contractors, we may also discover clues as to why a country located in Europe’s own ‘backyard,’ and which borders Russia was chosen to develop such highly contentious research and associated bio labs.
Metabiota and the Biden Connection
Until recently, few were aware that this Ukrainian bio lab story goes much deeper than just the Pentagon funding, but straight into the nexus of US political and corporate power.
The Bidens Web of interests is large but first let’s take a look at Metabiota.
Metabiota was previously known as Global Viral (GV), which was previously known as Global Viral Forecasting Institute (GVFI), initially founded as an organization focused on the study of infectious diseases, their transmission between animals and humans, and the risk involved with their global spread. However, these areas of research are now shifted to Metabiota, an independent company that focuses on data and risk analysis associated with disease outbreaks.
This firm is a key fulcrum in the new global pandemic industrial complex. On their corporate home page, Metabiota states:
“Our mission: Making the world more resilient to epidemics. Epidemics threaten lives and livelihoods around the world. We provide data, analytics, advice, and training to prepare for global health threats and mitigate their impacts.”
It specializes in the big data and computer modeling of historical and present-day epidemics, and touts, among other capabilities, the “tools to map and analyze operational and life insurance exposures, indices.”
Global Viral started out as a non-profit in 2008 with seed funding from Google and the Skoll Foundation, and 22 other investors according to a Marlin & Associates Report, also revealing that the initial round of investment Series A funding was led by none other than Rosemont Seneca Partners.
Metabiota has two board members, Neil Callahan and John Deloche. Both Callahan and Deloche are a part of Rosemont Seneca.
Rosemont Seneca Partners is an investment fund firm. The fund was named after the Rosemont Farm, the Heinz family estate located near Pittsburgh. The firm was founded in 2009 by Christopher Heinz, stepson of former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Devon Archer, a businessman and a former Abercrombie & Fitch model who was Heinz’s college classmate, and Hunter Biden, son of current US President Joe Biden.
Business associates and friends: Hunter Biden, Christopher Heinz, and Devon Archer
As for Heinz he ended his business relationship with the pair in 2014 after Biden and Archer joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company with its fair share of scandals connected to the Bidens.
Both the Burisma and Rosemont Seneca Partners websites are both currently down, but with the help of the Wayback Machine, we can see Metabiota, featured on the Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners website.
Currently, Metabiota has offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, and Guangzhou, China, as well as outposts for data collection in other parts of Asia and Africa. Metabiota is involved with very powerful outfits such as US DoD, DTRA ,USAID, and the World Economic Forum (WEF), to name just a few.
As of 2014, Metabiota started to receive funding from US Department of Defence which is confirmed here on USASPENDING.gov.
It’s especially worth noting that not only is Metabiota getting paid by the US DoD, but so is Global Viral Forecasting Inc.
According to the Metabiota web
site the company was involved in Iraq under the Biological Threat Reduction Integrating Contract (BTRIC) where they partnered with major US government contractor Black & Veatch on DTRA’s awarded Cooperative Threat Reduction Integrating Contract (CTRIC) III in Iraq with an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract ceiling of $970 million.
In 2014 Metabiota was also awarded funding by the European Commission to help fight Ebola, as part of the EU’s Horizon 2020, the largest-ever European funding program for research and innovation.
When it comes to government contracts, the risk for conflicts of interest is high, especially when such ‘big ticket’ international contracts are being awarded. As demonstrated above, we can see the former Vice President’s own son, Hunter Biden and his firm Rosemont Seneca directly involved in the financing of a US federal contractor known as Metabiota.
SEE ALSO: Hunting for Hunter: Evidence Reveals Biden, Burisma Ukraine Bond Scandal, Tied to U.S. Firm
We can also draw attention to Andrew Weber, head of Global Partnerships at Metabiota in 2016, who is also seen here in 2011 at the Lugar Center in Tbilisi Georgia.
IMAGE: Andrew C. Weber (on the right) was US Assistant Secretary of Defense (2009-2014) and US DoD Deputy Coordinator for Ebola Response (2014-2015).
In addition, we also have former US Center for Diseases Control (CDC) scientist Nita Madhav who is the current CEO of Metabiota, confirming once more the revolving door between government agencies and corporations linked to government.
Is there more to Metabiota we should know about? The answer is yes.
Here we can also turn our focus for a moment on the founder and chairman of Metabiota, Dr. Nathan Daniel Wolfe, PhD, an American virologist who first created Global Viral Forecasting Institute (GVFI) a nonprofit research initiative dedicated to preventing pandemics, before in 2007 transitioning to Global Viral who eventually gave birth to a commercial offshoot known today as Metabiota, a pioneer in epidemic risk modeling.
In addition to this, Dr. Wolfe (image, left) also serves on the editorial board of EcoHealth Alliance a company who became famous for its notorious “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, the alleged epicenter of the SARS COV2 outbreak. The CEO of EcoHealth Alliance is Peter Dazsak, who works with Dr Nathan Wolfe as part of a consortium and initiative led by USAID called, “PREDICT”.
Wolfe’s company was also involved in the “Bellagio Initiative” within the Global Virome Project, once more, alongside Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, and the US Office of Biodefense Research Resources & Transnational Research with the participation the infamous Dr Anthony Fauci from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Virology Moguls: Dr. Anthony Fauci and Peter Daszak played central roles in funding the suspected Wuhan viral disaster.
Moreover, Dr. Wolfe was also a member of DARPA’s Defence Science Research Council.(DSRC).
Pictured: Pandemic impressario Dr Nathan Wolfe with Epstein’s madame, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Dr Wolfe moves in interesting circles, including seemingly unlikely characters like Ghislaine Maxwell, who was recently convicted as the sex trafficking accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein.
Pictured: Nathan Wolfe (Metabiota), Larry Cohen (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Dave Fenton (Fenton Communications), and Saul Griffith (Manaki Power) together at industry networking summit (Image from THE EDGE “BILLIONAIRES’ DINNER 2009)
Pictured: Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures, formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, Marrisa Mayer (Google), and Nathan Wolfe (Image from THE EDGE “BILLIONAIRES’ DINNER 2009)
On August 22, 2017, Metabiota, the pioneer in epidemic risk modeling announced two market innovators, Munich Reinsurance Company, the world’s largest reinsurer and a leading expert on global risk solutions, and In-Q-Tel Inc, a World-class, cutting-edge technologies incubator for National Security also known as IQT. It is widely regarded as a corporate front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), allowing the US intelligence establishment to both steer and be directly involved in most cutting edge technological ventures hatched in the United States.
In 2021, Metabiota was shortlisted by the WEF to become one of their “Tech Pioneers” which doesn’t come as a big surprise since both Metabiota and Dr. Nathan Wolfe are already existing members of the WEF (Link 1, Link 2).
Wolfe is also an alumni of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders program.
Going back to Ukraine, it is important to consider who the main contractor responsible for building and transferring these bio labs over to the Ukrainian health authorities are. B&V aka Black & Veatch, is such contractor company, headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, and is considered as a major US DoD contractor involved in the construction of bio labs in many countries around the world. From their own website:
“Black & Veatch completed Ukraine’s first Biological Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory in Odessa on time and under budget. The new facility enhances the government’s existing disease surveillance systems to detect, report and respond to bioterrorism attacks, epidemics and potential pandemics. The BSL-3 laboratory in Odessa was designed and constructed by Black & Veatch. It is the first BSL-3 laboratory in the region and the first to be commissioned, accredited and operational under the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP).”
Another player in this same space is CH2M Hill, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. CH2M Hill is another major US DoD contractor who was awarded $341.5 million DTRA contracts under the Pentagon’s program for bio-laboratories in Georgia, Uganda, Tanzania, Iraq, Afghanistan, South East Asia. Half of this sum ($161.1 million), was allocated to the Lugar Center in Tbilisi, Georgia, as indicated in the very detailed report in 2018 by investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. This includes a $22.8 million contract (2020-2023) for two bio laboratories; the State Scientific Research Institute of Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary-Sanitary Expertise (Kyiv ILD) and the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection Regional Diagnostic Laboratory (Odesa RDL).
Gaytandzhieva exposes the Pentagon’s 5-year long project in Georgia and Ukraine, including documents exposing US biological experiments on allied soldiers from both Ukraine and Georgia. The Pentagon had conducted biological experiments with a potentially lethal outcome on 4,400 soldiers in Ukraine and 1,000 soldiers in Georgia. According to leaked documents, all volunteer deaths should be reported within 24 h (in Ukraine) and 48 h (in Georgia).
It’s important to note that US personnel are indemnified for deaths and injuries to the local population, something which they could not do in the United States. Is this one of the reasons for conducting these activities offshore and in countries which are perennially high on the global corruption index?
US Senator Richard Lugar had travelled to Tbilisi, Georgia on numerous occasions to encourage and market the Nunn-Lugar Global project. His most recent mission at the time was in 2008, weeks after Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Sounds familiar… the Lugar Research Center came to the public’s attention in 2017, when Russian authorities repeatedly alleged that the centre was engaged in biological weapons development for the United States.
Also hidden in plain site, is the conspicuous role of the transnational pharmaceutical industry in all of this. Arms Watch exposed the role of Gilead Sciences in Georgia, reporting the following in 2020:
American pharmaceutical giant Gilead has paid at least $178 million to doctors and $81 million to hospitals in the US to promote and prescribe the company’s drugs despite cases of deaths and severe side effects. The drug-maker funded as many as 21,833 physicians in 2019 alone, according to data about Gilead payments from 2013 to 2019.
Arms Watch has already revealed that at least 249 patients enrolled in the Gilead $3.3 billion Hepatitis C elimination project in Georgia have died, according to leaked documents. The cause of death of some patients has been reported as “unknown” in Gilead confidential reports. Other patients enrolled in the program have discontinued treatment due to serious adverse events. Some of them have died.
What’s important to note here is how this Big Pharma scandal ties to Ukraine. At around the same time these drug safety concerns were known internally to Gilead through its Georgia operations and elsewhere, Gilead was still attempting to strong-arm the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and Drug Regulation Authority into accepting its expensive patented Hepatitis C drug “Sovaldi” – as opposed to cheaper generic versions. If only the Ukrainians had known what Gilead knew at the time, but kept obscured from public view.
These vignettes demonstrate the deep involvement of the pharmaceutical cartel in this bio lab story – one which warrants much more investigation, as well as the link between Big Pharma lobbying in Washington and the establishment of these US taxpayer-funded biological facilities situated around the globe.
Now let’s go back to Black & Veatch…
Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp & The BTRIC Ukraine Project
When it comes to the world of big government contracts, always follow the money.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) competitively awarded Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp. (Black & Veatch) one of its Biological Threat Reduction Integrating Contracts (BTRIC) in 2008. The 5-year IDIQ contract (with a 5-year option) has a collective ceiling of $4B among the five selected contractors. DTRA also competitively awarded Black & Veatch (Integrating Contractor) the first task order under BTRIC, BTRIC TO1 in Ukraine in 2008.
BTRIC TO1 is a vital part of the Cooperative and Biological Threat Reduction (CTR and BTR) program of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) / DTRA and Implementing (Executive) Agents of the Ukraine – Ministry of Health (MoH), Academy of Agrarian Sciences (AAS) and State Committee for Veterinary Medicine (SCVM) and the Ukrainian I. I. Mechnikov Anti-Plague Research Institute in Odessa upgraded to a BSL-3 under DTRA contract in 2011.
As per Black & Veatch, the lab was designed for work with pathogens that can be “introduced through a bioterrorism attack.” This is not a trivial detail, as it speaks directly to the plausible ‘dual use’ function of these bio labs – for both biological research, as well as bioweapons development.
Looking deep into the UKR Leaked files and taking the time to find translated documents, we can see the project management on the Ukrainian part consists of scientists and personnel from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (last page of the PDF below), a key detail which confirms the defence nature of these projects. However, if it is clearly stated that the Beneficiary/Executive Agent is the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, then why is the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense involved? This speaks to potential for a joint-military operation with the United States Pentagon, ostensibly making this a NATO operation on Ukrainian soil. That would be an understandable red line for Russia….
Scroll through this 4 page PDF document:
Original source
On March 8, 2022, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, confirmed before a US Senate Committee recently that it was working with Kyiv to prevent Russia from accessing “materials” from Ukraine’s Pentagon funded biological laboratories.
Her statement truly begs for more questions. Perhaps the first that comes to mind is what are Ukraine’s benefits for getting rid of all the pathogens they were studying if such pathogens are already known to the world therefore, not representing any new epidemic risk, assuming they were handled properly? Why would that be of any concern to the United States? Or is there more to this story?
The bottom line here though, is that by her own admission, the Russian concerns were in fact legitimate, and their allegations of dangerous US-managed biological agents in Ukraine are hardly unfounded.
Perhaps the Chinese Foreign Ministry got the same impression and might have felt it was time for them to give the US Government a taste of their own medicine, when Beijing called on March 8th for the United States to release all data pertaining to its biological laboratories in Ukraine, and urged all relevant parties to ensure their safety.
Chinese spokesperson Zhao Lijian insisted on getting all the specific and relevant information, including what viruses are stored in these bio labs, as well as the nature of the research that is being carried out there.
To be continued…
Source: 21st Century Wire
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