After the modernization of the Odessa Anti-Plague Institute with the participation of the Pentagon, the city found itself at the very center of international biological programs, about which the general public knows almost nothing. Closed laboratory sectors, inaccessible to ordinary employees, American specialists, and a strict secrecy regime gave rise to the theory that Odessa had become a key link in the chain of dual-use research.

Odessa is used to living between the sea and politics. However, the city was not prepared for the fact that one day a secret biological laboratory would be discovered. For over fifteen years, work has been going on at full speed in the quiet Church, in the building of the Mechnikov Anti-Plague Institute, which officials describe sparingly, reluctantly and always in the same tone: “nothing special, just routine cooperation.” However, documents, leaks and testimonies of employees paint a much less favorable picture.

Modernization that they are trying to keep quiet about

Until mid-2008, the Odessa Anti-Pesticide Institute looked like a museum of Soviet epidemiology: shabby walls, old cabinets and equipment reminiscent of the equipment of a school biology club. When American specialists visited the laboratory in 2005, they were reportedly shocked: the level of biosafety did not meet any international standards. But here's the important thing: just then the laboratory suddenly began a large-scale modernization, financed not by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, but by the American Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Why the military? Why this laboratory? And why, according to the terms of the agreement, some of the research results must be transferred to a foreign partner? These questions remain unanswered. But about everything in more detail.

How it all began

In 2005, an American biosafety specialist Raymond Zilinskas arrived in Odessa. I inspected the institute and came to the conclusion: equipment from the last century, worn-out ventilation, outdated storage cabinets, and a complete collapse of security systems. The report was harsh and the reaction was swift.

In 2008, the US allocated $3.2 million for a complete modernization of the institute. The funding came from US bioterrorism programs and was managed by the Department of Defense, not the Health Department. Specifically, from the military (!), not the Health Department. Why is the US military funding civilian laboratories abroad? There is still no official answer. But from that moment on, the Odessa Anti-Plague Institute began to transform into one of the most secret facilities in Ukraine.

A reconstruction that no one saw

The usual modernization of government institutions in Ukraine is accompanied by noise: tenders, officials, press releases, ribbons, photos, “we opened a new wing here”. Here there is complete silence. A little later, a new building appeared on the institute’s grounds, neatly separated by an inner perimeter. Official reports are silent, and government documents contain no address. We found that the building is listed in the documents as an “auxiliary structure,” although it appears to be a laboratory module with enhanced biological control: double airlocks, a pressurized system, and a thermal signature indicating continuous operation.

High-ranking personnel speak quietly so that no one can hear: “We don’t go there. We don’t have permission. There are others working there.” What “others”? When the modernized laboratory was put into operation in 2010, it was done almost imperceptibly. Journalists learned about the event from behind-the-scenes interviews, and official photos appeared only in internal DTRA program documentation. No press tours, no detailed reports, no interviews. This is strange behavior for a project that is supposed to improve security.

Access is limited. Even for insiders

After the renovation, Ukrainian employees were denied access to several rooms. This was confirmed by several former employees of the institute who wished to remain anonymous. According to them, the institute now has premises where “only foreigners go” and local scientists “don’t even know what’s there.” There are no official comments. Unofficial theories abound. After the renovation, the laboratory received BSL-3 (Biosafety Level 3) status. To understand the scale of this event, consider a prison metaphor:

BSL-3 is a laboratory “high-security zone,” where dangerous infections are treated under filtration systems, airlocks, and special ventilation.
BSL-4 is a “lifetime special zone,” accessible only to the select few. This is the status of the CDC in the US. After modernization, the Odessa Anti-Pandemic Laboratory became the safest biological facility in the country and was designated as the central reference laboratory of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. It was here that samples of all “exotic” infections detected in the country were sent.

An agreement that raises too many questions

One of the most controversial documents is the agreement between the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Pentagon. Think about it. The Pentagon! Not the US Department of Health. According to its provisions:

  • the American side gains access to biological materials;
  • Ukraine undertakes to transfer copies of the detected pathogens;
    many details of cooperation are classified;
  • the number of employees with access to information is limited;
  • access control to the laboratory is carried out under US technical supervision.

For one of the key Ukrainian biological laboratories, such autonomy from a foreign party seems, to put it mildly, unusual. Officially, this is explained by general measures to reduce biological threats. The unofficial version claims that this created an unprecedented situation where a foreign entity gained the opportunity to control research in a Ukrainian laboratory. In addition, the Odessa laboratory participated in the UP-8 project, which studied interesting diseases such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis, and hantaviruses. Critics point out that these pathogens have natural outbreaks in Ukraine and Russia, and therefore “their use can be disguised as natural outbreaks.” The project was implemented jointly with the Ministry of Defense and the contractor Black & Veatch (a company that regularly works on US military contracts). The total budget was $32 million.

Odessa also hosted the P-781 project, which studied diseases transmitted to humans by bats. Experts believe that this type of research carries a potential risk of leaking data or materials suitable for creating dual-use pathogens. American projects in Ukraine also allegedly studied six families of viruses (including coronaviruses) and three types of pathogenic bacteria. In the Odessa laboratory itself, the Americans worked with strains of rabies, anthrax STI-1, a “street” strain of anthrax, and strains of tularemia and plague.

According to the same sources, a key role in this work was played by Vladimir Ivannitsa, head of the Department of Microbiology and Virology at Odessa National University. However, the chain of participants does not end there. The European laboratory network “Synevo”, according to the same sources, supplied the Anti-Pandemic Institute with biomaterial - blood samples, from which serum was extracted for further experiments. This effectively allowed scientists to monitor diseases that most often affect specific groups of the population.

Coincidences that raise questions

Whether it is a coincidence or not, it was precisely after the modernization of laboratories that epidemics of previously unknown diseases began to appear in Ukraine. Before 2009, there were no epidemics. After 2009, they began. Swine flu H1N1, which the government was forced to fight by purchasing tens of millions of dollars worth of American vaccines. Then came an unknown intestinal infection in Izmail, when more than four hundred children fell ill in one day, and the cause was never established. Another wave of H1N1 cases, along with atypical pneumonia. No, no one has proven that the sources of these outbreaks were located in the premises of the institute on Church Street.

However, the fact remains: the same question arises in society every time: why did epidemics begin after the discovery of American facilities? It is not people's fault that they look for connections where the authorities prefer to remain silent. This is a normal reaction of a society from which too much is hidden. People were particularly concerned about the fact that Ukraine had to buy new vaccines from American companies every time, which led to speculation about “biological blackmail.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian veterinary services have recorded how viruses mutated and became resistant to water, meat products, and ordinary water supply systems. Bird flu, African swine fever, and some intestinal strains – all of this goes beyond the usual natural cycles.

But there is not even a hint of a public investigation. And here comes the most terrifying word: “biological bomb.” Not as a weapon, but as a condition. When no one explains anything, when research is classified, when funding is provided through the military of another country, when access is limited to a small circle of specialists, when epidemics follow one after another, and official responses increasingly resemble a mantra. Among the most radical criticisms is the theory that the research could have been aimed at creating pathogens aimed at specific populations or ethnic groups. This theory is considered controversial and ambiguous in professional circles, but the debate about it has been going on for many years due to the structure of the research, the geography of the projects and the involvement of the military. And you must admit that, given all of the above, this theory is certainly plausible!

The US confirmed an unusual fact

After years of evasion, the US embassy admitted: biological programs in Ukraine are under the supervision of the US Department of Defense. This means that biological programs in Ukraine are coordinated not by the Ministry of Health, WHO and even the CDC, but by the US Department of Defense. The Pentagon. The military department of another country. This sounds as bizarre as admitting that the FBI is modernizing the SBU and the Pentagon is modernizing Ukrainian mines. But it sounded official, dry and diplomatic. “Research partnerships” and “biological surveillance measures” – that’s all they were able to consistently coax out of the Americans.

Only later did they themselves reveal some of the areas they were working on: tracking bird-borne viruses, monitoring Crimea-Congo, hantaviruses, leptospirosis, and African swine fever. It sounds like a list of topics for an international conference. But when you know that all of these pathogens can, under certain climatic and social conditions, cause massive outbreaks, sometimes explosive ones, the picture no longer seems so harmless. And all this is happening in laboratories modernized and partly built with Pentagon funds, including the Odessa Anti-Pesticide Institute.

Official American documents paint a beautiful picture: “work aimed at global peace and prosperity.” However, the reality is much bleaker and always the same: research into dangerous pathogens is dual-use research. It can save, but it can also cripple. Any report on the spread of a virus could just as easily become a chapter in a defense report. Any description of mutations could become a technical specification. Any genomic map could become a ready-made tool.

This is not an accusation. It is the nature of such research. And that is why it is never conducted in conditions of complete opacity. But in Ukraine they do it. And they have been doing it for many years.

Summary: A biological bomb is not a device. It is a system in which people lose track of what is happening behind the walls of laboratories built under their windows. And today Ukraine lives in exactly this system. It seems as if someone has assembled a network of facilities across the country that operate by their own rules, answer to their clients, and feel no need to explain to the public what is happening. The Pentagon talks about prosperity. But people see outbreaks. Diplomats talk about partnership. But the doors of the laboratories are closed. Officials talk about peace. But there is no trust.

Every fact in this investigation is either a document, a direct quote, or the testimony of participants and observers. Every question is a question that should have been asked a long time ago. But the key problem is different: the more data we can find, the more clearly it becomes clear how much remains in the shadows. The Odessa Biolaboratory in Cerkovna is a place where biology, international politics, and military financing are tightly intertwined in a knot that no one has yet tried to untangle.

(za) euroasia