A high-ranking UN official on Friday urged Russia and Ukraine to cease the ongoing conflict through dialogue and diplomacy at a Security Council meeting called by Russia to discuss the United States' alleged military biological research in Ukraine.
"The need for negotiations to stop the war in Ukraine could not be more urgent," said UN Undersecretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo at the meeting, noting that three rounds of talks held thus far between Ukrainian and Russian delegations must be intensified, notably to secure humanitarian and ceasefire arrangements as a priority.
"The logic of dialogue and diplomacy must prevail over the logic of war," she stressed.
The meeting comes on the heels of claims by Russian Ministry of Defense Spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov on March 6, saying his country's military had uncovered evidence of U.S.-funded military biological programs in Ukraine, including documents confirming the development of "biological weapons components."
Addressing those concerns, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, said, "the United Nations is not aware of any biological weapons programs."
Since the Biological Weapons Convention entered into force in 1975, biological weapons have been outlawed. With 183 states parties to the treaty, biological weapons are "universally seen as being abhorrent and illegitimate," she stressed.
Addressing other concerns, Nakamitsu warned that an accident involving the nuclear facilities in Ukraine could have severe consequences for public health and the environment and all steps must be taken to avoid it.
"The possibility of an accident caused by failure to a reactor's power supply or the inability to provide regular maintenance is growing by the day," she said. "The forces in effective control of nuclear power plants in Ukraine must ensure their safe and secure operation."
Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said his delegation convened the meeting because it had discovered a "truly shocking" emergency clean-up by authorities in Kyiv of traces of a military biological program carried out in Ukraine and funded by the Pentagon.
He said the Russian Ministry of Defense has documents on its website confirming that a network of 30 biological labs across Ukraine were conducting "very dangerous" experiments to strengthen the pathogenic qualities of the plague, anthrax, cholera and other lethal diseases using synthetic biology.
Denying those claims, U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said, "Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program. There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the United States."
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