From General Powell to General Kirillov Kremlin invents its "test tube" for Azerbaijan

The search for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons) in Iraq was the main pretext for the Western coalition to declare war against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. Six months to a year before, the Americans and Britons had regularly published a so-called "Iraqi dossier" trying to convince the international community that Saddam was posing a terrible threat with his weapons of mass destruction. The invasion was carried out, and Saddam was easily overthrown and then executed. However, as we remember, the Americans did not find any WMDs. 

Of course, during those years, not all countries believed that Iraq had WMDs. One of those countries was Russia, which opposed the military operation of the Western coalition in Iraq. Moscow, which traditionally had a relationship of trust with Saddam (let’s remember his meetings with Russian politicians Yevgeniy Primakov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, as well as the numerous visits of Iraqi politician Tariq Aziz to the Russian Federation), understood the absurdity of the accusation of the Iraqi dictator of having WMDs. However, it can be said that during that period Kremlin's voice remained flagrant.

Years passed. Today Moscow is already using the same trick that the Americans and Britons used in 2003 but there is another scale. The chemical warheads were mentioned in the "Iraqi dossier" while the US biological laboratories allegedly operating along the Russian borders in the post-Soviet area were mentioned in the "Moscow dossier".

Surprisingly, Azerbaijan's name has been mentioned in this fake "Moscow dossier" frequently. As Caliber.Az has already revealed, Azerbaijan is one of the countries falsely accused of harboring such labs, a charge made openly by Russian TV journalist Arkady Mamontov in his "Andromeda Strain" film on the "Russia-24" state TV channel (January 2022).

However, if earlier the topic of the so-called biological laboratories was actively circulated among the Russian experts and media, now these false statements are made at the official level. So, Chief of the Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov at "an Arria formula" informal meeting of the UN Security Council on April 6 said that the US is creating biological laboratories in different countries, according to the same scenario and connecting them to a unified system for detecting the use of biological weapon use. Kirillov devoted most of his speech on biological laboratories to Ukraine while for some reason pointing to Azerbaijan in the presentation map.

Unpleasant thoughts that someone wants to involve Baku in these dirty games appeared after the speech made at the meeting by Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, known for her ardent anti-Azerbaijani position, who accused Azerbaijan of supplying terrorists with weapons in Syria in 2017. Unfortunately, these thoughts were approved.

So, during a briefing at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on April 14, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov once again shared "shocking data" about the US military biological activity in Ukraine, in particular, about the work of the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center (USTC). According to Kirillov's report, one of the main elements of the creation of bioweapons by the Pentagon was the USTC. Kirillov said that the headquarters of the USTC is located in Ukraine’s Kyiv city and has regional offices in Azerbaijan’s Baku city, Moldova’s Chisinau and Georgia’s Tbilisi.

"At the same time, the Expert Center for Chemical and Biological Threats of the Russian Ministry of Defence has established that the main activity of the USTC is to perform the functions of a grant distribution center for conducting research of interest to the Pentagon, including research in the field of biological weapons,” the general said. “The customers and sponsors of the USTC from the US side are the US Department of State and the Department of Defense.  Washington has recently spent more than $350 million on the implementation of the projects by the USTC."

Definitely sounds like déjà vu. But if we have previously observed this situation from Russia's enemies, namely, the US and UK in relation to Iraq, Libya, Syria, now certain military circles in the Russian Federation are trying to use this trick. General Kirillov should take US political Colin Powell’s tiny vial of white powder from the Americans (the one that the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell demonstrated at the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, and in which, according to him, there was a sample of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction) and an ideal pretext for apparent attacks on Baku, Chisinau and Tbilisi is ready. That is, accusations of the location of some US-Ukrainian biological laboratories in Baku are a means and a method. But what is the goal? Is it the same that the Americans had in connection with Iraq in 2003?

Meanwhile, Caliber.Az’s sources informed that any biological laboratories in Azerbaijan sponsored by the US are out of the question and the information voiced by Kirillov is absolutely false. 

The silence of the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan also testifies to this, although the domestic media outlets appealed to it with a request to comment on this issue. Apparently, numerous accusations against Azerbaijan have already been made in Moscow and Bocharnikov's subordinates have nothing to say. We can only guess who and why in Russia, which is currently in a difficult geopolitical situation, wants to escalate the situation with Azerbaijan as well.