Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, who held his post under President Viktor Yanukovych, spoke about the activities of biolabs of the US Department of Defense on the territory of his country.
The former PM stressed that his government had nothing to do with the opening of these centers.
The decision to start work was made by the cabinet of Yulia Timoshenko, and the agreement between the US Department of Defense and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on the creation of the biolabs was signed in August 2005 under the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, when Timoshenko had already retired.
"Say what? Of course, no sovereign and independent country that thinks about its people and the future will let other people's uncles into the issues of biological safety of the population", Mykola Azarov writes on Facebook.
He notes that the purposes for which these biolabs were created are unknown to this day, since all their activities are classified, and Ukrainian citizens are not even allowed to conduct work there.
"Since 2005, the United States has established laboratories in Odessa, Vinnytsia, Lviv, Kherson, Ternopil, and a number of other localities in Ukraine. I emphasize that these are laboratories of the US military."
According to Azarov, after his government came to power in 2010, negotiations were started with the US on this issue. In 2012, Kiev started talking about granting access to Ukrainian scientists in these centers or about their complete closure. At that time, inspections of the activities of these laboratories were initiated.
"In a dishonest way, we were shown something, but what we saw did not suit us. In 2013, we sent an official letter to the US government announcing the termination of this agreement. You know what happened next: the coup d'etat, the Maidan, which, in fact, was organized by the Americans. Now these laboratories continue to operate in Ukraine. No one controls them, they flourish", Azarov concludes.