Moscow makes bizarre claim that the US is planning bio-warfare against Russian troops in Ukraine as fears of disease grow after dam destruction

Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov speaks during a briefing on the review of documents related to the US military-biological program in Ukraine in Moscow, Russia on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023.Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

A Kremlin official made an outlandish claim earlier this week after he accused the US of planning to supply Ukraine with drones with mosquitoes on Russian fighters.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the country’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, said in a statement recorded on video the aim was to infect Russian soldiers with malaria.

“Russia has wheeled out Igor Kirillov, the lt. gen who made the baseless ‘dirty bomb’ claims against Ukraine, once again,” Max Seddon, the Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, wrote in a tweet.

Kirillov has previously claimed that the US had developed biological weapons in Ukraine, a claim a White House official told Yahoo News was “bogus.”

“Now he is accusing the US of supplying Kyiv with special drones carrying ‘infected mosquitos’ that will spread malaria among Russia’s invading forces,” Seddon added.

During his address, Kirillov said that the “flooding of the region planned by the Kyiv regime can complicate the situation, including with regard to arbovirus infections,” according to Metro.

The bizarre claim comes after the destruction of a major dam near Kherson caused flooding along the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine earlier this month.

Russia is heavily suspected of having orchestrated the destruction of the dam to disrupt Ukrainian military operations in the area, Insider previously reported.

“After a drop in the water level, it is possible to form foci of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, primarily West Nile fever,” Kirillov said in his statement, adding that the US has a “patent for a drone designed to spread infected mosquitoes in the air.”

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While he didn’t go into detail about the “patent,” he added, “In accordance with the description, the drone must deliver a container with insects to a given area and release them.”

“When bitten, mosquitoes can infect military personnel with a dangerous infection, such as malaria,” he said.

A flooded residential area in Kherson on June 8, 2023.Alex Babenko/Getty Images

While the bizarre claim appears to have little basis, the dam’s destruction has caused fears over subsequent disease and health concerns.

The country is preparing for an outbreak of waterborne diseases, like cholera, after the immense floods from the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ukraine’s health minister recently told Politico. A military partisan movement said the Russian army has recently suffered a cholera outbreak after the destruction of the dam, Newsweek reported. The group said “informants” from military hospitals in the Kherson region said that Russian soldiers are being admitted daily with suspected cases of the bacterial disease.

There are also concerns about the water being contaminated by chemicals, fertilizers, and sewage, per Politico, after the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the effect on the “region’s water supply, sanitation systems, and public health services cannot be underestimated.”

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