South Ossetia fears that the emergence of a number of plant and animal diseases in the region may be related to the activities of the Lugar laboratory in Georgia, Alan Margiev, the head of the state veterinary and phytosanitary surveillance service, told reporters.
" We are seriously worried about the activities of the Lugar laboratory in Georgia - It began to be built in 2007-2008, and finished in 2011. Just since that time, we have an African swine fever, against which today there is not even vaccines. And such a disease - last year we had an outbreak - contagious nodular dermatitis. This is a cattle disease, it was also recorded for the first time in the Republic, "Margiev told Russian and foreign media reporters, RIA-Novosti reports.
He has also noted that South Ossetia and even more Abkhazia were affected by the invasion of a marble bug, which has signs of gene modification. "The (Marble) bug that lives in America gives three generations a year. The bug that lives in Abkhazia, which came to its territory from Georgia, gives more offspring per year than its American brother. There are big fears that this a modified sample that is more resistant to temperature changes, chemistry, various kinds of chemicals, "Margiev told reporters.
He also said t that "people one-month spray plants with one preparation, for the second month it is no longer effective, withstand its influence - it is necessary to alternate the use of these preparations."
The climate of South Ossetia is less favorable for the marble bug than the climate of Abkhazia, however, the Rpublic also suffers from its invasion. “We found it in the border regions with Georgia. We later found out that it was in the Georgian border villages that are located near our border line that this bug spread in serious volumes, causing great damage to the agricultural sector of Georgia ... We are working to minimize the risks of its spread. Chemicals, sprayers have been purchased, and people’s explanation is being carried out, "he explained.
According to him, the authorities of South Ossetia do not have information about the Lugar laboratory activities, and the access of specialists there is limited. "No one is aware about the activities of this laboratory. The information is very closed, the access to the laboratory is not for outsiders, for representatives of other countries and organizations .... We do not know what they are doing there, in the lab, as they don’t let anyone in, but we are seriously worried. We feel that they may be a threat to us There are figures that that before the functioning of this laboratory, we didn’t have these diseases, " he said.
In the spring of 2019, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Rashid Nurgaliev at a meeting in Tskhinval did not exclude that the Lugar laboratory near Tbilisi could be the reason for the spread of the marble bug, and said that it was necessary to take measures for struggling against the threats posed by it.
The Russian side has repeatedly expressed concern about the activities of the Pentagon "to locate its biomedical laboratories in the immediate vicinity of Russian borders." In 2015, Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned the so-called “Lugar Public Health Research Center” in the suburbs of Tbilisi, under the roof of which the US military medical research unit was firmly “registered”.
Moscow believes that the American and Georgian authorities are trying to hide the true content and focus of the military unit of the US Army, which is studying especially dangerous infectious diseases. The Georgian side considers the fears in vain and states that the laboratory is engaged exclusively in scientific research. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that Moscow would ask for official US clarifications about the activities of the laboratory in Georgia, where they could conduct lethal experiments on people.
