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Moscow has targeted Tbilisi-based Lugar Center for Public Health Research again, claiming that African Swine Fever (ASF) was bred in the Georgian facility.

“We believe that the 2007 ASF strain with increased contagiousness was engineered in Georgian biolaboratory run by the Pentagon,” Interfax quoted Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological protection force, as saying.

The Russian military official continued: “its spread caused significant economic damage to several states, including Ukraine and Poland, and excluded them from a number of pork exporters.”

But the Lugar Center, the USD 100 million lab, has not been the main target of Kirillov’s bio-warfare allegations this time.

During the briefing on March 7, the Russian military official claimed 30 biological facilities, working with pathogens of “dangerous infections,” were operating in Ukraine under joint programs with the U.S.