The info on the biolabs predates the invasion by four years - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA is a presentation made 3 years ago, the original article goes back to 2018. At the time I thought it was disinfo, but it has checked out from non-Russian sources - and yeah, I know about the Strategic Culture group of publications and their actual provenance.
The info on the biolabs predates the invasion by four years - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA is a presentation made 3 years ago, the original article goes back to 2018. At the time I thought it was disinfo, but it has checked out from non-Russian sources - and yeah, I know about the Strategic Culture group of publications and their actual provenance.
And we could have wound them up in six months, brought the scientists back to universities in the US - they would have jumped at the chance as did so many others from Russia itself, and had the entire operation cleaned out in a year. 1992. There is *no* reason for *any* US-supported, financed, or aided bioweapons lab in Ukraine. None, period. So far as I'm concerned, biological or chemical warfare has no place in society, but that's just me. We should save insecticide for insects.
The worst thing about this is that we had credible intelligence since 2014 that the labs were an attractive nuisance for any invading Russian force - like the Russian Army forces that invaded Lugansk and Donetsk provinces in that year and who had been fighting Ukrainian Army units ever since. We could have cleaned them out long before the invasion this year and failed to do so - and wound up giving Putin a casus belli - and let it be known that Ukraine would *not* be joining NATO. Have a look at a map, with a ruler for distance scale, and that will tell you much about Putin's concerns, which in fact were quite legit.
There is a reason we didnтАЩt do that. ItтАЩs the same reason we funded research that was little more than torture on dogs in Tunisia. The US public actually has really high standards and expectations for their scientists. Labs have to follow OSHA and EPA regulations. All proposed experiments at universities have to go through committees to receive permission and funding and they take such things as public health and needless suffering seriously. There are very few labs in the US that are rated to handle many of these pathogens (like Anthrax) and we arenтАЩt particularly interested in creating more. So what do we do? We outsource our more questionable science to other countries that have lower standards for safety and suffering. Sometimes we just fund the science but other times we provide pretty much everything, itтАЩs simply on foreign soil. A terrible accident on the Ukrainian/Russian border is much more manageable from a PR standpoint than the same terrible accident if it happens at UCLA. Certainly there is foreign collaborative research that doesnтАЩt fall into this category, but it would be best to look skeptically at any science that America is involved in that takes place outside America. The only thing IтАЩm not sure about is if leaving those labs completely unprotected was a blunder on par with arming the Taliban with our Afghanistan withdrawal or if it was purposeful. Frankly IтАЩm not sure which reason is more concerning.
The info on the biolabs predates the invasion by four years - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T9ktfz_FfA is a presentation made 3 years ago, the original article goes back to 2018. At the time I thought it was disinfo, but it has checked out from non-Russian sources - and yeah, I know about the Strategic Culture group of publications and their actual provenance.
the info on the biolabs goes back to 1991. they were Soviet labs. of course a degenerate KGB agent knows about them.
And we could have wound them up in six months, brought the scientists back to universities in the US - they would have jumped at the chance as did so many others from Russia itself, and had the entire operation cleaned out in a year. 1992. There is *no* reason for *any* US-supported, financed, or aided bioweapons lab in Ukraine. None, period. So far as I'm concerned, biological or chemical warfare has no place in society, but that's just me. We should save insecticide for insects.
The worst thing about this is that we had credible intelligence since 2014 that the labs were an attractive nuisance for any invading Russian force - like the Russian Army forces that invaded Lugansk and Donetsk provinces in that year and who had been fighting Ukrainian Army units ever since. We could have cleaned them out long before the invasion this year and failed to do so - and wound up giving Putin a casus belli - and let it be known that Ukraine would *not* be joining NATO. Have a look at a map, with a ruler for distance scale, and that will tell you much about Putin's concerns, which in fact were quite legit.
There is a reason we didnтАЩt do that. ItтАЩs the same reason we funded research that was little more than torture on dogs in Tunisia. The US public actually has really high standards and expectations for their scientists. Labs have to follow OSHA and EPA regulations. All proposed experiments at universities have to go through committees to receive permission and funding and they take such things as public health and needless suffering seriously. There are very few labs in the US that are rated to handle many of these pathogens (like Anthrax) and we arenтАЩt particularly interested in creating more. So what do we do? We outsource our more questionable science to other countries that have lower standards for safety and suffering. Sometimes we just fund the science but other times we provide pretty much everything, itтАЩs simply on foreign soil. A terrible accident on the Ukrainian/Russian border is much more manageable from a PR standpoint than the same terrible accident if it happens at UCLA. Certainly there is foreign collaborative research that doesnтАЩt fall into this category, but it would be best to look skeptically at any science that America is involved in that takes place outside America. The only thing IтАЩm not sure about is if leaving those labs completely unprotected was a blunder on par with arming the Taliban with our Afghanistan withdrawal or if it was purposeful. Frankly IтАЩm not sure which reason is more concerning.