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Kremlin Pushes Renewed Bioweapons Allegations Against Ukraine to Justify War
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The Kremlin is reviving false claims about Ukrainian bioweapons programs as part of a broader propaganda campaign aimed at justifying the war, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) said on May 27.
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An official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation recently claimed the agency possesses information regarding "the development of bioweapons with US funding and with the participation of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine."
The CCD notes that these claims are part of a systematic Kremlin campaign aimed at justifying Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by framing the aggression as a preemptive strike.
Ukrainian officials state that these narratives have been repeatedly debunked, yet the Russian propaganda apparatus continues to cycle through the same talking points. The Investigative Committee representative asserted that a criminal investigation into the matter has been open since 2022.
Commenting on the situation, the CCD observed: "A completely logical question arises: if during the years of 'investigation' Russian law enforcement officers really found something, why have they not yet published a single real piece of evidence? The answer is obvious – they have nothing to show the public."
According to Ukrainian outlet LB.ua, the narrative regarding biological weapons has been a fixture of Russian rhetoric since the initial stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In March 2022, state actors regularly circulated various claims, including assertions about "work with pathogens of birds and reptiles with a subsequent transition to studying the possibility of them carrying African swine fever and anthrax," as well as theories involving coronavirus-carrying bats.
Senior Russian leadership has consistently reinforced these claims. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov previously stated that the "biological weapon," which he claimed was being created in Ukraine with US backing, is ethnically targeted.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also asserted that the United States recognized the existence of 36 biological laboratories in Ukraine where experiments were conducted on humans, an allegation that remains entirely unverified.
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The claims reached a peak in October 2022, when Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, alleged that Ukraine had developed a specialized drone designed to transport containers filled with "combat mosquitoes."
According to Nebenzya, these insects were infected with dangerous diseases meant to target Russian citizens as part of an American biological program. The CCD emphasizes that despite the lack of evidence, the Kremlin continues to utilize these narratives to fabricate a sense of threat and rationalize ongoing military actions.
Russia had continued spreading false claims about alleged Ukrainian biolabs while simultaneously renovating its own former Soviet biological weapons facility, Sergiyev Posad-6, near Moscow.
Satellite imagery revealed major upgrades to the site, including advanced air handling systems, underground infrastructure, and reinforced security measures, raising international concerns about Russia’s potential expansion of bioweapons capabilities.
Meanwhile, investigations by the United Nations and independent experts had found no evidence supporting the Kremlin’s accusations against Ukraine’s Mechnikov Anti-Plague Institute in Odesa.
Official rebuttals to these allegations had repeatedly come from international organizations and independent experts. Investigations conducted by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and other international bodies found no evidence that Ukraine operated biological weapons programs or military biolabs funded by the United States.
Ukrainian health laboratories involved in international cooperation were publicly known facilities focused on disease prevention, epidemiological monitoring, and biosecurity research.
Additional Russian claims — including allegations about “combat mosquitoes,” infected bats, and ethnically targeted biological weapons — were also widely dismissed as disinformation and conspiracy theories lacking any factual basis.
Experts noted that Russia had failed to provide verifiable evidence despite repeatedly promoting these accusations since 2022, while the Kremlin continued using the narrative to justify its military aggression against Ukraine.
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