For weeks, there have been persistent rumors that the U.S. was affiliated with numerous biological research facilities in Ukraine that Putin wanted to destroy — rumors the mainstream media aggressively quashed.  However, the narrative shifted this past week, when Biden's assistant secretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, admitted that there were indeed biological research laboratories and that the U.S. was "quite concerned" that the Russians might get their hands on them.  Then, on Friday, Putin announced his intention to make a case to the U.N. that America has been violating international law.  Whether these labs violated the law, there's also more evidence now about what's in them...and it's nasty stuff.

For more information about the story to date, you can read American Thinker's short summary or Glenn Greenwald's longer one.  The short version is that there are biolabs in Ukraine, but the American people are still largely in the dark about their contents and purpose.  That may be changing.

On Friday, Putin requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations' Security Council so he can present evidence showing that America is involved in "military biological activities" in Ukraine:

Russian Mission asked for a meeting of #SecurityCouncil for 11 March to discuss the military biological activities of the US on the territory of #Ukraine https://t.co/51LOJwi6zy

— Dmitry Polyanskiy (@Dpol_un) March 10, 2022

This claim is consistent with rumors I've been hearing that Putin is sitting on a motherlode of information embarrassing to America generally and to Biden specifically.  In other words, Biden may regret gloating about the fact that he has taken unilateral steps to destroy the economy of a country with which we are not at war.

Image: Anthrax spores.  Public domain.

And lest you think Putin is just seeking headlines through innuendo, intrepid internet researchers discovered that, back in 2010, a publication called "BioPrepWatch.com" wrote that a brand new biolab handling dangerous pathogens was opening in Ukraine (hat tip: The National Pulse):

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar applauded the opening of the Interim Central Reference Laboratory in Odessa, Ukraine, this week, announcing that it will be instrumental in researching dangerous pathogens used by bioterrorists.

The level-3 bio-safety lab, which is the first built under the expanded authority of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, will be used to study anthrax, tularemia and Q fever as well as other dangerous pathogens.

Those are indeed dangerous pathogens.  And that lab is closely tied to Obama.  Not only did it open during Obama's presidency, but Obama was also a driving force behind its creation:

Lugar said plans for the facility began in 2005 when he and then Senator Barack Obama entered a partnership with Ukrainian officials. Lugar and Obama also helped coordinate efforts between the U.S and Ukrainian researchers that year in an effort to study and help prevent avian flu.

The same article explains that the initiative was part of the Nunn-Lugar Act, which, in 1991, established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.  The purpose was to "dismantle and safeguard large stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."

What one must ask is whether in the ensuing years — 31 since the Nunn-Lugar Act and 12 since just one lab was opened — those stockpiles were actually dismantled or if the U.S., which we've learned has unpleasant research facilities all over the world, kept the facilities in play for continued research into pathogens.

Given Nuland's statement that the U.S. is "quite concerned" about Russians reaching those labs, you've also got to wonder about the safeguarding that was going on.  After all, the Biden administration has known for months that Putin was threatening Ukraine.  Did it take any steps at all to secure these pathogens?

Putin is neither a fool nor a madman.  He is a calculating actor whose early career was entirely predicated on collecting people's secrets and then using those secrets against them.  Are we about to witness him exposing some of America's most embarrassing, even criminal, secrets?  And much as I loathe Biden, if some of those secrets concern him, what will be the fallout for America?