U.S. intelligence services, pharmaceutical companies involved in military bio studies in Ukraine: Russian Defense Ministry

Photo taken on Feb. 19, 2020 shows the Pentagon seen from an airplane over Washington D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The Russian Defense Ministry has a document with names of all the key U.S. officials supervising Ukraine's military biological programs, Kirillov said.

MOSCOW, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Defense Ministry disclosed on Saturday information of U.S. high-ranking participants in the military biological studies in Ukraine, many of whom are associated with U.S. intelligence services or pharmaceutical companies.

The ministry has a document with names of all the key U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.