Russia urges U.S. to explain purpose of biological labs in Ukraine

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Washington must explain to the international community the purpose of U.S.-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine.

"We remember for how many years and with what bloody results the United States searched for various types of chemical, biological, bacteriological weapons and so on all over the world, actually occupying lands and killing people," the ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a briefing.

She said that Kiev has recently begun erasing traces of these biological programs.

"We received documentation from Ukrainian employees at the biological laboratories on the urgent destruction of especially dangerous pathogens, plague, anthrax, cholera and other deadly diseases on Feb. 24," she said.

Also on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this issue is of great importance and the whole world would like to know the purpose of these labs.