The US Intends To Set Up a Biological Laboratory in Mongolia?

Russian Media: Mongolia denies it, but experts believe the virus research might be targeting Asians.

According to an April 11 report by the Russian newspaper Izvestia, the U.S. Department of Defense is expanding biological research initiatives across Asia and has applied to the Mongolian government for permission to establish several specialized laboratories there. The report claims that experts believe that the United States is preparing to transfer its research projects from the Ukrainian laboratories, which have been shut down, to Mongolia.

U.S. and German military organizations and research centers in Mongolia are already conducting personnel training in microbiological research, including research on rare, infectious diseases that affect humans and animals, the report said. Experts believe that the focus of the U.S. research may be on the impact of dangerous viruses on Asians.

Mongolia’s National Center for Zoonotic Diseases denies that the U.S. plans to set up a biological laboratory there, and the U.S. Department of Defense has not responded to inquiries.

Izvestia claims that it is clear, from academic data gathered over the past few years, that U.S. and German experts have been periodically collecting samples and biological material in Mongolia. They are actively studying the country's endemic diseases and their variants. The U.S. military provides financial support for the research, and U.S. military officers themselves engage in research there.

The report provided an example: In the January issue of the Western academic journal ScienceDirect there was a study of tick-borne diseases in Mongolian livestock. The study used the most advanced DNA-sequencing technology. An instructor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Silas Davidson, and a U.S. military medical entomologist, Betty Katherine Poole-Smith, were involved. Biological and chemical weapons expert Oleg Zheltonozhko told Izvestia, “We know about the work of similar [U.S.] biological laboratories in Georgia and Ukraine. Judging by the information, work in Mongolia is being carried out in the same vein. In Europe, the impact of certain diseases on Europeans is being studied, and in Mongolia, on people of Asian origin. Of course, China should be wary.”

The Izvestia report continued, saying the data reflect that U.S. experts in Mongolia are most interested in biological research on insect-borne and zoonotic diseases. Mongolia’s National Center for Zoonotic Diseases, the Institute of Veterinary Medicine and the Academy of Medical Sciences all have established partnerships with the U.S. military’s biological organizations.

Former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze believes that the United States is developing weapons that target specific genes, and that the research in Mongolia might be focused on Chinese genetics. He explained that research contracts are subcontracted through labyrinthine layers of private enterprises, concealing who, behind the scenes, is the real stakeholder: the U.S. Department of Defense.

Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin said that just as the U.S. and NATO had established military research and development in Ukraine and Georgia, they intend to gradually do the same in Mongolia. Mongolia, which shares borders with only Russia and China, is thousands of miles away from the U.S. and Europe. Endemic disease research in Mongolia is the ideal pretext to install biological research laboratories there, functioning as an alternative to installing military bases.