The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Ukraine’s health care system very hard. Problems in medical and biological safety field escalated significantly. The consequences of the reform initiated earlier by Ulana Suprun were particularly negative.
by Vasily Prozorov
Experts harshly criticized her innovations in the pre-coronavirus time, but now we are talking about the fact that the medical support of the population has failed, and people survive not because of the actions of the state, but in spite of it. The Ukrainians people often call Suprun as “doctor death”.
It is even more striking that the medical reform was actually imposed on Ukraine from abroad, from Washington. After all, we are well aware that Ulana Suprun is not a doctor, not an expert in healthcare, not an experienced manager, she is only an executor of ideas that were formed in the West and were supposed to benefit Western interests.
Saboteur in a white coat
Who is Ulana Suprun and how did she manage to head one of the most important ministries for people’s lives in Ukraine?
Ulana Suprun was born in the United States in the family of Ukrainian immigrants. She received a medical degree from the prestigious University of Michigan but according to media reports, she never worked as a practicing doctor. Her experience includes several years of internships, courses in x-ray diagnostics and postgraduate studies which she apparently never completed. Her biography also includes a job in a medical institution specializing in the diagnosis of women’s health, but without specifying the type of activity, and later some administrative posts in various clinics.
And five years before the Maidan, Suprun completely retired from business and, by her own admission, she and her husband simply traveled around the world. In 2015, for their active participation in protest actions, President Poroshenko gave the Suprun couple the Ukrainian citizenship. At the same time, they did not refuse the U.S. citizenship. Therefore, all the period as Minister of Health she was persecuted by the prefix ‘acting’. This is a simple way to circumvent the law prohibiting persons with dual citizenship from holding Ministerial posts.
However, according to some rumors, her appearance in Ukraine at the height of the “revolution of dignity” was not accidental. There is information on the Internet that she was prepared for this. Taras Woznyak, her possible cousin and CIA agent in Ukraine, is named as Suprun’s curator. I can’t confirm the accuracy of the information but my experience in the security services suggests that without the intervention of American intelligence and the establishment, her appointment to the post of Minister would never have taken place.
In any case, Ulana Suprun was very far from the pressing problems of the Ukrainian people. This is eloquently indicated by some medical instructions published under her supervision, banally copied from American ones. For example, they contained advices on dealing with burns of Pacific jellyfish and what to do if you got a heatstroke in Arizona. She also recommended Ukrainians to eat more red caviar, because black caviar was less useful for the body. But don’t judge her harshly, she had completely another mission.
Lobbying of interests of foreign pharmaceutical campaigns
First of all, Suprun acted for the benefit of foreign countries and companies during her work in Ukraine. In particular, she lobbied state purchases of certain drugs of the American pharmaceutical companies.
For example, Expert committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine held a regular session on December 21, 2016, where the content of the National list of the recommended medicines was discussed. Government purchases of drugs for providing medical institutions are planned on the basis of this document.
During the meeting members of advisory council made the decision not to include a number of medicines recommended by the World Health Organization in the list, basing on the following:
– one supplier and/or the only producer/applicant of the pharmaceutical form in Ukraine;
– high cost;
– innovation (i.e. novelty and low statistic information use).
But Sofosbuvir and fixed combination Ledipasvir+Sofosbuvir were not eventually included in the National list because of their high cost and novelty.The minutes of the meeting of the Expert committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines of December 21, 2016:
The American corporation Gilead Sciences is a producer of these drugs. I will repeatedly mention this company in the investigation.
In less than a month, in January, 2017, a letter to the Minister of Health came from Graeme A. Robertson, the Senior Director at Gilead Sciences, Africa & CIS Access Operations & Emerging Markets. Mr. Robertson asked Ulana Suprun to review the decision and to include medicines based on Sofosbuvir in the National list.The letter of the Gilead Sciences to Suprun:
I do not know what benefit Ulana Suprun gained from this deal, but just in a month later, in February, 2017, the Expert committee held extraordinary meeting where it made the decision to include Sofosbuvir in the National list. At the same time members of the committee openly pointed out the medicine was included in the list on the personal application of the Acting Minister of Health.
The minutes of the meeting of the Expert committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines of February 9, 2017:
Along with the minutes, Suprun’s contribution to the lobbying of interests of the American pharmaceutical industry is confirmed by the letter of the Expert committee to the Delta Mediсal Promotions AG company, which is a representative of the Gilead Sciences in Ukraine. It is accurately told that including of Sofosbuvir in the National list became possible only by the decision of the Acting Minister Ulana Suprun.The letter of Expert committee to the Delta Medical:
Sofosbuvir from Gilead Sciences: cures or cripples?
We should elaborate more fully on the drug itself and the corporation, which in fact recruited the Head of the Ministry of Healthcare of a foreign state to advance their own interests.
So, let’s turn to the notorious experience of the Georgian government’s cooperation with the United States in the medical and biological sphere. Let me remind you that two years ago Igor Giorgadze shared the results of the investigation about experiments on residents of Georgia. The tests were carried out by the same Gilead Sciences. The former Minister of State Security demonstrated the documents with data on the hundred dead and suffering complications during the tests of the experimental drug Sovaldi, in which Sofosbuvir is the active substance.
There are a lot of whispers centered around the corporation that its laboratories invent not only a medicine for some kind of infection, but also the virus itself. Great suspicions were associated with the avian flu drug «Tamiflu», which was released by «Gilead Sciences» in 1999. An avian influenza epidemic soon broke out. The shares of the pharmaceutical company instantly rose.
However, we should not expect the condemnation of the American pharmaceutical giant from the world community. In this regard, it is worth mentioning how close the corporation is with the political establishment in Washington. It was Donald Rumsfeld who chaired Gilead Sciences at the turn of the century. He had previously replaced several positions in the White House, then headed the Pentagon in 2001, and was responsible for the invasion in Iraq in 2003.
Joseph Grogan was the official lobbyist for Gilead Sciences until 2017. Then he moved to the post of the director of the U.S. Internal Policy Council and became the assistant to President Donald Trump.
Therefore, one should not be surprised that on May 1, 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the U.S. government allowed the use of the drug from Gilead Sciences Remdesivir for the treatment of covid-19. This medicine had been jointly developed with the U.S. Armed Forces Infectious Diseases Research Institute to combat Ebola in 2015. But then, as now, it did not show its effectiveness. Moreover, as the Financial Times reported, the drug could cause serious side effects. In China, out of 158 patients who were experimentally treated with Remdesivir, 18 people were forced to stop taking it.
Nevertheless, due to lobbying, the pharmaceutical company makes good money. You can imagine how much they can get from the sale of the drug if one five-day Remdesivir course costs almost 2.5 thousand dollars!
Reforms are a harbinger of the troubles
The reform of the healthcare system in the American way had an impact both on the well-being and health of Ukrainians, but also worsened the epidemiological situation as a whole. Both outbreaks of known diseases and the emergence of new strains of viruses have become more frequent. It would seem that in these conditions it is necessary to concentrate efforts on measures for the early detection of infections. But instead, government decisions lead to the weakening of epidemiological control. These include, for example, the disbandment of the Laboratory Center on Water Transport of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.Letter from the Director of the Laboratory Center on Water Transport in the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine:
According to the director, Doctor Golubyatnikov, the liquidation of the institution led to the situation that the state border in the seaports of Ukraine became open to the threat of “the import of especially dangerous infectious diseases”. This eventually took place less than a year before the coronavirus epidemic.
But Ukraine had previously, in 2017-2019, experienced outbreaks of epidemics of such diseases, which, it would seem, had long been defeated. It was during the time Ulana Suprun was the Minister of Health of Ukraine that the measles epidemic reached unprecedented scale in the country. According to the WHO statistics in 2018, Ukraine became the “leader” in Europe in the incidence of measles.
Suprun banned Russian vaccines against this disease, allegedly due to their inefficiency. However, no other measures were taken to combat the disease in the country. The level of danger of the situation is evidenced by two documents. The first one, dated of 2018, was referred to the critical situation with measles, including among civil servants. For vaccination of citizens, the latest stocks of vaccines were in use.Ministry of Health Order No. 1216:
The second one, dated of 2019, indicated the further deterioration of the situation. The document stated that over 55 thousand people had fallen ill with measles in Ukraine throughout 2018, and already over 50 thousand had fallen ill in just five months of 2019, and without trends towards a significant decrease in the outbreak.Letter from the Ministry of Health to the heads of the Regional state administrations of Ukraine:
The collapse of the biological safety system of Ukraine
Now let’s consider even more alarming aspect of the American influence in Ukraine, this time in the biological sphere. The fact that the U.S. pharmaceutical companies lobby their interests is a quite common thing for the whole world, but turning an entire country into a testing ground is already quite rare, but, unfortunately, not a unique case.
In 2005 US Department of Defense and the Ministry of Healthсare of Ukraine concluded an agreement on cooperation to prevent the leak of technologies, pathogens and knowledge that can be used for the development of biological weapons (hereinafter – the Agreement). US Defense Threat Reduction Agency was engaged in the implementation of projects.
Before the Agreement was signed Democratic Senator and future US President Barack Obama visited Ukraine. First of all, he was interested in the state of facilities where Soviet developments of biological weapons are stored. Let me remind you that the president of the country at that time was the pro-Western politician Viktor Yushсhenko. The Security Service of Ukraine, and all the country, knew that he was an agent of the American special services. My colleagues actively discussed his wife’s career at the State Department and possible ties with the CIA. As members of the security agency, we clearly understood how intelligence works and what government agencies were used to cover the work of its employees.
Thus the Pentagon get control over the critical biological facilities of Ukraine and the ability to conduct secret studies of deadly viruses. From the very beginning of this so-called cooperation, the American side has made serious attempts to pressure Kiev in order to establish control over all Ukrainian government agencies involved in working with especially dangerous microorganisms.
Along with this since 2007 representatives of the US Ministry of Defense insisted on the need to consolidate dangerous pathogens of human and animal origin in a single repository (central reference laboratory with veterinary and medical departments). Meanwhile they excluded the development and modernization of integrated physical and biological protection system and a network of scientific and medical, epidemiological, veterinary and anti-plague institutions.
Yanukovych’s attempts to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty in the field of biological protection of the population
In 2010 the course towards Kiev unquestioned subordination to Washington was suspended by the new president Viktor Yanukovych. Besides, he instructed the Security Service of Ukraine to figure out what specifically American epidemiologists were working on, what results they had, and to whom they were reported. After all, it was about national security, the security of citizens!
Just imagine: our specialists have limited access to the biological facilities where the samples of deadly viruses are stored, and Americans as sponsors enjoy exclusive rights, and no one controls them,” Yanukovych noted.
As a result, Security Service of Ukraine specialists came to disappointing conclusions. An analysis prepared by the Service in spring 2013 noted:
… Some steps of foreign representatives can be regarded as actions to undermine the relevant scientific and technical potential… The requirements of the American side to create a single repository of pathogens contradict the principles of the existing in Ukraine veterinary control system, which designed for constant work with pathogens on the ground… The implementation of these proposals carries a risk to the research capacity. “Security Service of Ukraine Report on Biological Laboratories:
Washington intended to obtain information from the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the NAAS. The list and data on the storage sites of highly dangerous biological agents, toxins, as well as the atlas of historical sites of infectious diseases origin in Ukraine and copies of existing pathogenic strains were among of Washingtons interest. Given that the cost of the Ukrainian collection of pathogens, according to average international estimates, is more than 2 billion US dollars, the interests of the American biotechnology and pharmaceutical lobbies are clearly seen here.
Moreover, Washington was interested not only in the results of research and developments of Ukrainian scientists. The US Ministry of Defense representatives have already attempted to completely turn Ukraine into a biological training ground by illegally establishing sentinels and electronic systems on its territory to transmit data on outbreaks of infectious diseases and biometric parameters of the country’s population to American servers. The EIDSS system presented by the US military was proposed for implementation in the structural units of the State Veterinary Service and the NAAS of Ukraine. Moreover, it is important to understand that only US representatives should have access to all this information.
US proposed electronic system for transmitting data on outbreaks of infectious diseases and biometric parameters of the population of Ukraine to American servers controlled by the US government
In this context, I would like to give an excerpt from the SBU analysis:”… These actions of the American side are regarded by domestic experts as the formation of their own database of pathogens strains stored at Ukrainian facilities, their storage systems, as well as monitoring and studying by military doctors the effectiveness of the use in specific regions of Ukraine of pathogens of especially dangerous infections for the creation or modernization of new types of biological weapons of a selective type of action (against a certain race, genotype, territory of birth or residence).”
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Add titleHow the U.S. Turned Ukraine into A Biological Testing Ground
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Ukraine’s health care system very hard. Problems in medical and biological safety field escalated significantly. The consequences of the reform initiated earlier by Ulana Suprun were particularly negative.
by Vasily Prozorov
Experts harshly criticized her innovations in the pre-coronavirus time, but now we are talking about the fact that the medical support of the population has failed, and people survive not because of the actions of the state, but in spite of it. The Ukrainians people often call Suprun as “doctor death”.
It is even more striking that the medical reform was actually imposed on Ukraine from abroad, from Washington. After all, we are well aware that Ulana Suprun is not a doctor, not an expert in healthcare, not an experienced manager, she is only an executor of ideas that were formed in the West and were supposed to benefit Western interests.
Saboteur in a white coat
Who is Ulana Suprun and how did she manage to head one of the most important ministries for people’s lives in Ukraine?
Ulana Suprun was born in the United States in the family of Ukrainian immigrants. She received a medical degree from the prestigious University of Michigan but according to media reports, she never worked as a practicing doctor. Her experience includes several years of internships, courses in x-ray diagnostics and postgraduate studies which she apparently never completed. Her biography also includes a job in a medical institution specializing in the diagnosis of women’s health, but without specifying the type of activity, and later some administrative posts in various clinics.
And five years before the Maidan, Suprun completely retired from business and, by her own admission, she and her husband simply traveled around the world. In 2015, for their active participation in protest actions, President Poroshenko gave the Suprun couple the Ukrainian citizenship. At the same time, they did not refuse the U.S. citizenship. Therefore, all the period as Minister of Health she was persecuted by the prefix ‘acting’. This is a simple way to circumvent the law prohibiting persons with dual citizenship from holding Ministerial posts.
However, according to some rumors, her appearance in Ukraine at the height of the “revolution of dignity” was not accidental. There is information on the Internet that she was prepared for this. Taras Woznyak, her possible cousin and CIA agent in Ukraine, is named as Suprun’s curator. I can’t confirm the accuracy of the information but my experience in the security services suggests that without the intervention of American intelligence and the establishment, her appointment to the post of Minister would never have taken place.
In any case, Ulana Suprun was very far from the pressing problems of the Ukrainian people. This is eloquently indicated by some medical instructions published under her supervision, banally copied from American ones. For example, they contained advices on dealing with burns of Pacific jellyfish and what to do if you got a heatstroke in Arizona. She also recommended Ukrainians to eat more red caviar, because black caviar was less useful for the body. But don’t judge her harshly, she had completely another mission.
Lobbying of interests of foreign pharmaceutical campaigns
First of all, Suprun acted for the benefit of foreign countries and companies during her work in Ukraine. In particular, she lobbied state purchases of certain drugs of the American pharmaceutical companies.
For example, Expert committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine held a regular session on December 21, 2016, where the content of the National list of the recommended medicines was discussed. Government purchases of drugs for providing medical institutions are planned on the basis of this document.
During the meeting members of advisory council made the decision not to include a number of medicines recommended by the World Health Organization in the list, basing on the following:
– one supplier and/or the only producer/applicant of the pharmaceutical form in Ukraine;
– high cost;
– innovation (i.e. novelty and low statistic information use).
But Sofosbuvir and fixed combination Ledipasvir+Sofosbuvir were not eventually included in the National list because of their high cost and novelty.The minutes of the meeting of the Expert committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines of December 21, 2016:
The American corporation Gilead Sciences is a producer of these drugs. I will repeatedly mention this company in the investigation.
In less than a month, in January, 2017, a letter to the Minister of Health came from Graeme A. Robertson, the Senior Director at Gilead Sciences, Africa & CIS Access Operations & Emerging Markets. Mr. Robertson asked Ulana Suprun to review the decision and to include medicines based on Sofosbuvir in the National list.The letter of the Gilead Sciences to Suprun:
I do not know what benefit Ulana Suprun gained from this deal, but just in a month later, in February, 2017, the Expert committee held extraordinary meeting where it made the decision to include Sofosbuvir in the National list. At the same time members of the committee openly pointed out the medicine was included in the list on the personal application of the Acting Minister of Health.
The minutes of the meeting of the Expert committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines of February 9, 2017:
Along with the minutes, Suprun’s contribution to the lobbying of interests of the American pharmaceutical industry is confirmed by the letter of the Expert committee to the Delta Mediсal Promotions AG company, which is a representative of the Gilead Sciences in Ukraine. It is accurately told that including of Sofosbuvir in the National list became possible only by the decision of the Acting Minister Ulana Suprun.The letter of Expert committee to the Delta Medical:
Sofosbuvir from Gilead Sciences: cures or cripples?
We should elaborate more fully on the drug itself and the corporation, which in fact recruited the Head of the Ministry of Healthcare of a foreign state to advance their own interests.
So, let’s turn to the notorious experience of the Georgian government’s cooperation with the United States in the medical and biological sphere. Let me remind you that two years ago Igor Giorgadze shared the results of the investigation about experiments on residents of Georgia. The tests were carried out by the same Gilead Sciences. The former Minister of State Security demonstrated the documents with data on the hundred dead and suffering complications during the tests of the experimental drug Sovaldi, in which Sofosbuvir is the active substance.
There are a lot of whispers centered around the corporation that its laboratories invent not only a medicine for some kind of infection, but also the virus itself. Great suspicions were associated with the avian flu drug «Tamiflu», which was released by «Gilead Sciences» in 1999. An avian influenza epidemic soon broke out. The shares of the pharmaceutical company instantly rose.
However, we should not expect the condemnation of the American pharmaceutical giant from the world community. In this regard, it is worth mentioning how close the corporation is with the political establishment in Washington. It was Donald Rumsfeld who chaired Gilead Sciences at the turn of the century. He had previously replaced several positions in the White House, then headed the Pentagon in 2001, and was responsible for the invasion in Iraq in 2003.
Joseph Grogan was the official lobbyist for Gilead Sciences until 2017. Then he moved to the post of the director of the U.S. Internal Policy Council and became the assistant to President Donald Trump.
Therefore, one should not be surprised that on May 1, 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the U.S. government allowed the use of the drug from Gilead Sciences Remdesivir for the treatment of covid-19. This medicine had been jointly developed with the U.S. Armed Forces Infectious Diseases Research Institute to combat Ebola in 2015. But then, as now, it did not show its effectiveness. Moreover, as the Financial Times reported, the drug could cause serious side effects. In China, out of 158 patients who were experimentally treated with Remdesivir, 18 people were forced to stop taking it.
Nevertheless, due to lobbying, the pharmaceutical company makes good money. You can imagine how much they can get from the sale of the drug if one five-day Remdesivir course costs almost 2.5 thousand dollars!
Reforms are a harbinger of the troubles
The reform of the healthcare system in the American way had an impact both on the well-being and health of Ukrainians, but also worsened the epidemiological situation as a whole. Both outbreaks of known diseases and the emergence of new strains of viruses have become more frequent. It would seem that in these conditions it is necessary to concentrate efforts on measures for the early detection of infections. But instead, government decisions lead to the weakening of epidemiological control. These include, for example, the disbandment of the Laboratory Center on Water Transport of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.Letter from the Director of the Laboratory Center on Water Transport in the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine:
According to the director, Doctor Golubyatnikov, the liquidation of the institution led to the situation that the state border in the seaports of Ukraine became open to the threat of “the import of especially dangerous infectious diseases”. This eventually took place less than a year before the coronavirus epidemic.
But Ukraine had previously, in 2017-2019, experienced outbreaks of epidemics of such diseases, which, it would seem, had long been defeated. It was during the time Ulana Suprun was the Minister of Health of Ukraine that the measles epidemic reached unprecedented scale in the country. According to the WHO statistics in 2018, Ukraine became the “leader” in Europe in the incidence of measles.
Suprun banned Russian vaccines against this disease, allegedly due to their inefficiency. However, no other measures were taken to combat the disease in the country. The level of danger of the situation is evidenced by two documents. The first one, dated of 2018, was referred to the critical situation with measles, including among civil servants. For vaccination of citizens, the latest stocks of vaccines were in use.Ministry of Health Order No. 1216:
The second one, dated of 2019, indicated the further deterioration of the situation. The document stated that over 55 thousand people had fallen ill with measles in Ukraine throughout 2018, and already over 50 thousand had fallen ill in just five months of 2019, and without trends towards a significant decrease in the outbreak.Letter from the Ministry of Health to the heads of the Regional state administrations of Ukraine:
The collapse of the biological safety system of Ukraine
Now let’s consider even more alarming aspect of the American influence in Ukraine, this time in the biological sphere. The fact that the U.S. pharmaceutical companies lobby their interests is a quite common thing for the whole world, but turning an entire country into a testing ground is already quite rare, but, unfortunately, not a unique case.
In 2005 US Department of Defense and the Ministry of Healthсare of Ukraine concluded an agreement on cooperation to prevent the leak of technologies, pathogens and knowledge that can be used for the development of biological weapons (hereinafter – the Agreement). US Defense Threat Reduction Agency was engaged in the implementation of projects.
Before the Agreement was signed Democratic Senator and future US President Barack Obama visited Ukraine. First of all, he was interested in the state of facilities where Soviet developments of biological weapons are stored. Let me remind you that the president of the country at that time was the pro-Western politician Viktor Yushсhenko. The Security Service of Ukraine, and all the country, knew that he was an agent of the American special services. My colleagues actively discussed his wife’s career at the State Department and possible ties with the CIA. As members of the security agency, we clearly understood how intelligence works and what government agencies were used to cover the work of its employees.
Thus the Pentagon get control over the critical biological facilities of Ukraine and the ability to conduct secret studies of deadly viruses. From the very beginning of this so-called cooperation, the American side has made serious attempts to pressure Kiev in order to establish control over all Ukrainian government agencies involved in working with especially dangerous microorganisms.
Along with this since 2007 representatives of the US Ministry of Defense insisted on the need to consolidate dangerous pathogens of human and animal origin in a single repository (central reference laboratory with veterinary and medical departments). Meanwhile they excluded the development and modernization of integrated physical and biological protection system and a network of scientific and medical, epidemiological, veterinary and anti-plague institutions.
Yanukovych’s attempts to restore Ukraine’s sovereignty in the field of biological protection of the population
In 2010 the course towards Kiev unquestioned subordination to Washington was suspended by the new president Viktor Yanukovych. Besides, he instructed the Security Service of Ukraine to figure out what specifically American epidemiologists were working on, what results they had, and to whom they were reported. After all, it was about national security, the security of citizens!
Just imagine: our specialists have limited access to the biological facilities where the samples of deadly viruses are stored, and Americans as sponsors enjoy exclusive rights, and no one controls them,” Yanukovych noted.
As a result, Security Service of Ukraine specialists came to disappointing conclusions. An analysis prepared by the Service in spring 2013 noted:
… Some steps of foreign representatives can be regarded as actions to undermine the relevant scientific and technical potential… The requirements of the American side to create a single repository of pathogens contradict the principles of the existing in Ukraine veterinary control system, which designed for constant work with pathogens on the ground… The implementation of these proposals carries a risk to the research capacity. “Security Service of Ukraine Report on Biological Laboratories:
In 2013, my colleagues from the SBU conducted a serious study of world experience in the management and storage of dangerous pathogens. The analysis of sanitary and epidemiological surveillance and veterinary control in the leading countries of Europe (Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Turkey, Finland, France, Sweden), Central and South Asia and APR (India, China, Singapore, Thailand, Japan) indicated the separation of relevant services. In other words, none of these countries uses the US-imposed option of creating a single consolidated reference laboratory.
A completely different picture was opened during the study of the experience of cooperation between the post-Soviet countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan) and the United States in the field of reducing the biological threat. In particular, there was identified a tendency of Washington to use various coercive mechanisms to implement de facto unilateral steps that undermine the national technical capacity and the existing biosafety system of these states.
So, in 2004, the US administration and the Georgian government signed an agreement on interaction in biosafety issues, which consisted of several stages of implementation: at the first stage – ensuring the physical and technical protection of laboratories and institutes where dangerous and especially dangerous strains of pathogens of human and animal infectious diseases are stored; on the second – the safe transfer to the American side of microorganisms’ strains or their copies from Georgia; the third – the construction of a central reference laboratory for the consolidation of strains.
Quote from the SBU report:
“...Georgia conducted an inventory of strains of microorganisms, developments and opportunities. The list was transferred to the American side and as only it was analyzed, the strains of especially dangerous pathogens were urgently exported by Air Force aircraft to the United States. In addition to the 18 strains declared in the request of the US Ministry of Defense, other strains were also transferred to the American side on a free basis, and the remaining copies in Georgia were practically lost during the reform of the sanitary and epidemiological supervision system in 2004-2008.
The implementation of the project has led to the destruction of the epidemic surveillance system and put the indication, identification and treatment of dangerous viral diseases in full dependence on the United States. “
So, in 2007, due to the lack of their own strains and the destruction of the diagnostic system, Georgian veterinarians were unable to identify the African swine fever virus in time and take measures to counter it.
In 2013, American “advisers” did not have total control over Ukrainian state structures and Ukrainian top leadership did not get into the habit of unquestioning accomplishment of Washington’s instructions. That is why Ukraine’s state services clearly understood that the United States was pursuing only their own goals in Ukraine, and their realization counter to the national interests. So, in April, 2013 the interdepartmental commission made the decision on need of introducing changes to the Agreement and informing the US about Ukrainian position. The commission composed of representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Department of Health, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the National Academy of Medical Sciences, the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, the National Sanitary and Epidemiologic Service and the National Veterinary and Phytologic Service. It was created by order of the Prime Minister of Ukraine of 4 December 2012 No. 763.
This is a quotation from the document of the SBU:
«… Based on conclusions of the commission, the initiatives of the American party stated above negatively affect the process of implementation of the Agreement and are unacceptable for Ukraine in the context of its own vision of the concept of building of the effective system of epidemiological and veterinary inspection adopted on 01 April .2013 by the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 620 “About the approval of the state task program of biological security of 2015-2020”.
SBU shares the position of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and the National Veterinary and Phytologic Service of Ukraine of the impracticality of continuing the biological threat reduction project in Ukraine as such, which considers as a risk to national interests in the biological sphere.»
In 2013, the cooperation between Kiev and Washington in the field of biological security was frozen. It might seem that after such conclusions of the SBU and also according to the approved state task program the question of reopening of DTRA in Ukraine should disappear from the agenda at least till 2020.Resumption of the «cooperation»
But … the Maidan revolution broke out. And in 2014-2015, during Obama’s presidency, this “cooperation” was intensified. The new Ukrainian authorities, completely loyal to the US, were willing not only to meet the American party, but also to demonstrate a readiness to accurately carry out any order of the State Department or the Pentagon.
As expected, Suprun put her hand to it. With her active assistance the creation of the Central Depositary of extremely dangerous microorganisms (EDM) was approved and it was also decided to place such a dangerous object in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.
In the letter to Suprun Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) of the US Ministry of Defense Robert Pope does not hide his satisfaction with the activities of the Head of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, including those related to the admittance of American specialists to Ukrainian to biological laboratories and the creation of the Central Depositary:
«The strong working relations between the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and DTRA of the US MoD were etablished thanks to your administration.
… The general stages for achieving our common goal are :
Step 1 : Analysis of samples of extremely dangerous microorganisms (EDM) for viability;
Phase 2 : Consolidation of viable EDMs in the United State Depository;
Phase 3 : Sequestration and destruction of EDMs, except when the conservation of living microorganisms for research purposes is satisfies the best global practices.
… Your participation is a guarantee of the security of Ukraine and its neighbors from the danger associated with dangerous microorganisms. I am grateful to you for your partnership in this vital mission. I look forward to continuing our fruitful cooperation.»
The letter from DTRA to Suprun:
Let me remind you the results of the similar mission of DTRA of the US MoD in Georgia. After the establishment of the centralized storage of EDM, all samples were urgently evacuated to the US by a military transport aircraft.
The attempts of the SBU to take under control military and biological activity of the USA in Ukraine
It should be noted that some specialists of the SBU unlike politicians and oligarchs, remained faithful to the duty and tried to protect the state interests and insisted on inadmissibility of uncontrollable penetration of the American specialists on the Ukrainian biological objects. For example, in 2016 and 2017 the Management of the SBU in the Kherson region warned about dangers of similar tendency and suggested to check activity «Black & Veatch special projects Corp.» (the contractor of DTRA of Ministry of Defence of the USA who won the tender for modernization of the Ukrainian biolaboratories) in counterintelligence maintenance.
«…The persistent aspirations of the United States of America to resuming of the project demonstrate intentions to establish control over all domestic researches of pathogen of especially dangerous infectious diseases, which can be used for creation or modernization of new types of biological weapons of the selection type of action. At the same time it is not excluded, that the foreign side will research own test systems in the territory of Ukraine in the conditions of the new Program of broad rights and powers. It will create potential threat of epidemiological and veterinary safety both in certain regions, and in the state in general.
The subordination of the projects «Reduction of Biological Threat» in Ukraine and the new «Program of attraction to joint biological activity» to the Ministry of Defence of the USA (military department of the foreign state) creates premises for penetration into regional laboratories of microbiological establishments of foreign specialists and their acquaintance with domestic strategic developments. Also at the same time the possibility of use of the data obtained for charges of our country of participation in development in its territory of biological weapons is not excluded».
Report of the Kherson DSBU of 2016:
In 2017 the Kherson Department of the SBU also warned anti-terrorist center about potential threat of the epidemiological and veterinary country situation caused by activity of DTRA and its contractor «Black & Veatch special projects Corp». According to conclusions of my former colleagues, the USA aimed to establish control of researches of pathogens which can be used for creation of new types of the biological weapon.
The quote from the document DSBU in the Kherson region:
“It is probable that generalization and the direction of results of researches in the Center of biological developments at MoD of the USA allegedly for connection of the American specialists to development of samples of the vaccines which are most adapted under inhabitants of the specific region can become the following stage of cooperation”.
Report of the Kherson DSBU of 2017:
But it did not lead to results. The cooperation of Ukraine with DTRA has only extended.
“Ukrainian projects” UP. Experiments with people
The current government of Ukraine prefers to avoid the displeasure of Washington and don’t ask additional questions. That is why Kiev doesn’t know or makes a show that doesn’t know what exactly the American specialists do behind the closed doors of laboratories in Ukraine and in what way this specialists use the collection of dangerous pathogens which are stored there from Soviet times. And Ukrainian Government is not able to explain this situation to community.
According to the information that I have the Pentagon’s experiments in Ukraine are the secret part of the DTRA project under the UP code-names which means Ukrainian project. Americans have modernized the laboratories of sanitary-and-epidemiologic service of Armed Forces of Ukraine. In exchange for this aid American specialists have an access to laboratories for carrying out the biological experiments.
Plan of the technical assistance:
The UP-3, UP-5, UP-6 and UP-8 biological projects were carried out during several years in Ukraine under the control of the specialists of the DTRA of US MoD and the American biologists from Louisville University and research institute of infectious diseases of the US Armed Forces (USAMRIID). The Ukrainian biologists shared the cultures of biological weapon agents (the Crimea-Congo hemorrhagic fever, rickettsia and others hantaviruses, bacteria “coxiella burnetti” and biological materials of Ukrainians with Western curators. And I remind you that all this happened under order and control of the US military.
But American officials have been still keeping back the US microbiologists participation in the experiments in Ukraine. The deputy head of the US mission to Ukraine Joseph Pennington insisted in his interview to the Ukrainian “Censor” on May 2020 that “American scientists didn’t work at the laboratories financed by the DTRA”. However look at the UP-3 project plan containing the evidences that the project was headed by Dr. Ramires and Dr. Johnson from Louisville University and Dr. Schmaljohn from the USAMRIID.
The UP-3 project work plan:
The UP-8 project has become the most large-scale project of the DTRA in Ukraine: “The spreading of the Crimea-Congo hemorrhagic fever and hantaviruses and potential need in differential diagnostics of the patients with leptospirosis symptoms”. Within the framework of this research the biologists conducted the experiments on the Ukrainian military getting the blood samples of four thousand of soldiers. And by the way it was acceptable to have the human losses during that experiment!
The quotation from the UP-3 project description:
“Determination of antibodies seroprevalence to hantaviruses among 4000 and the Crimea-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus among 400 healthy volunteers contracted by military unit institutions situating in Lviv, Kharkov, Odessa and Kiev. The comparison of the findings and the data containing in their medical records and questionnaires.
…All lethal cases during the experiments which allegedly or directly caused by procedures must be reported to the bioethics committees of the USA and Ukraine. Any cases of protocol violation or exception which may negative affect on continuation of the experiments in scientific way must be immediately reported to the senior researcher, the researcher assistant, the bioethics committees of Ukraine and the DTRA”.
From the Ukrainian side, experiments involving military personnel were supervised by the Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the support of 10th regional SED in Kyiv, 27th regional SED in Odessa, 28th regional SED in Lviv and 108th regional SED in Kharkiv.
The Ministry of Health of Ukraine engaged the Center for Public Health, the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene of the Danila Galitsky Lviv National Medical University, Central Clinical Hospital in Kyiv, Regional infectious clinical hospital, as well as Volyn, Lviv, Transcarpathian and Dnipropetrovsk regional laboratory centers.
The scientific part of the project was led by Professor Collin Johnson, Director of the Center for Biomedical Sciences at the University of Tennessee. Gregory Glass from the Institute of Emergent Pathogens of the University of Florida, Gregory Mertz from the Center for Global Health of the University of New Mexico, Scott Howard from the Center for Biological and Medical Sciences of the University of Tennessee also participated in this program.
The general leadership was carried out by the representatives of DTRA Gevin Braunstein and Brendt Siegel.
As a result, the United States received not only a collection of biomaterial of 4000 Ukrainian servicemen from four regions of Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Odessa, but also antibody tests to especially dangerous viral diseases and the characteristics of the body’s response to pathogens depending on demographic and regional features, as well as symptom descriptions and clinical data.
Such studies have a dual purpose. On the one hand, they are important for assessing the threat of infection in a particular region. On the other hand, they can be used to create bacteriological weapons of selective action, or ethnic biologicl weapon. For example, combat viruses will affect only Eastern Slavs: Ukrainians, Russians and Belorussians. Just about this danger the SBU reported to Yanukovych in 2013.
In my assessment, such studies are prohibited by the United Nations Biological Weapons Convention (1972). The activities of American laboratories in Ukraine call for attention of the UN and thorough investigation by the international community.
The UP-8 project was repeatedly extended at the initiative of the American side.
Quote from Black & Veatch Project Manager Lance Lippenkot’s letter:
“To discuss the implementation of the project and determine plans to continue research for another year (1st additional year), we plan to hold a meeting at the State Institution “Center for Public Health of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine “May 10-11, 2018 at the address: 41Yaroslavlskaya Street, Kyiv 04071.”
Letter from Black & Veatch to CSED:
It’s obvious that Ukraine is gradually losing its sovereignty in the field of health and biological safety. This trend will only intensify with the Democrats coming to power in the United States.
The medical reform imposed by Washington led to failures during the measles and coronavirus pandemic. The reducing of hospitals, doctors and other measures led to budget savings, but in fact this money was not spent on the modernization of the remaining medical facilities. State funds were used to purchase the expensive medicines of American pharmaceutical companies due to the “political decisions” of Ulana Suprun.
During the time she headed the Ministry of Health, research on especially dangerous microorganisms in the Pentagon-controlled biological laboratories in Ukraine was continued and expanded. The results of experiments on Ukrainian military personnel can be used to create ethnic bioweapon of a selective type of action that will affect people of a certain race, genotype, territory of birth or residence. The experience gained in Ukraine will allow Americans to kill exclusively representatives of the Slavic ethnic group. Hitler could only dream of such a thing.
Such studies are contrary to the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons. We know only a small part about closed American biological projects in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and other states of the post-Soviet space. But the US bio-labs also operate in Asia and Africa, and I believe similar developments are being carried out there. US military-biological activities should be the subject of an international investigation.
I hope that the documents I published will allow sensible forces in Ukraine to organize resistance to the creeping absorption and enslavement of the Ukrainian people and stop the development of weapons of mass destruction.
Persons: Ulana Suprun
Pyotr Poroshenko
Taras Woznyak
Graeme A. Robertson
Igor Giorgadze
Robert Pope
Joseph Pennington
Lance Lippenkot
Gevin Braunstein
Brendt Siegel
Organizations:Gilead Sciences
DTRA
Black & Veatch Special Projects Corporation
Central Sanitary and Epidemiological Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
