On May 18, the Russian Embassy issued a statement “On cooperation between Russia and Armenia in the field of ensuring biological safety”, which states:

“At the meeting of the leaders of the CSTO member states held in Moscow on May 16, President of Russia Vladimir Putin paid special attention to the problems of ensuring biological safety in the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Information about the US military biological program in Ukraine caused a wide response. In connection with the questions addressed to the embassy by the media regarding the cooperation between Russia and Armenia in the field of ensuring biological safety, we would like to note the following:

The Russian Federation continues productive mutually beneficial cooperation with Armenia in the field of ensuring biological safety. Its activation was facilitated by the signing in May 2021 of a bilateral Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding on Ensuring Biological Safety.

A number of successful projects are being implemented in the field of combating infectious diseases, as a result of which effective monitoring of the sanitary and epidemiological situation, information exchange, important scientific research, technical and methodological support in improving the laboratory network of Armenia and training of specialized specialists have been ensured.

Thanks to bilateral cooperation in the fight against HIV, Armenia became one of the first countries where the transmission of HIV from mother to child has been eliminated. Joint work with the use of mobile laboratories handed over by Russia made it possible to prevent the release of plague and other dangerous infections from natural foci on Armenian territory.

At the same time, in the context of the implementation of the mentioned memorandum on biosafety, we still have questions in connection with the incoming information about the interaction of Armenia with the United States and its allies in the biological field, including through the military agencies.

The US Department of Defense is targeting center after Lugar in Georgia funded by it to intensify joint scientific research in the field of microbiology and epidemiology with Armenia and other countries of the region. The activities of private Western companies carrying out biological research in the Transcaucasian region in the interests of the Pentagon, and the presence in Armenia of structures participating in bioprojects in Ukraine also deserve careful analysis.

The US and its allies do not explain what they are doing in Armenia in close proximity to the Russian borders. This factor, of course, is taken into account by us in the context of ensuring the biological safety of Russia.”