Top Putin ally makes bonkers claim AMERICA sparked Covid pandemic by funding risky experiments in Wuhan lab
A LEADING ally of Vladimir Putin has claimed the US sparked the Covid pandemic by funding experiments in a Wuhan laboratory.
In a bonkers outburst, Vyacheslav Volodin blamed “some kind of leak” from a US biological lab for the coronavirus crisis.
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Mr Volodin, 57, speaker of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, called on the US to halt research that he claims could have led to the virus developing.
In a meeting with Russian deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova, he said: "Judging by how silent US client states are, and the silence of the US itself, we can make one conclusion.
“It is absolutely obvious that this is related to the fact that some kind of leak happened in those labs that they set up all around the world.”
The Putin loyalist even demanded compensation from Washington for countries hit by the pandemic.
'HELD HOSTAGE'
Mr Volodin said "Let them think about how to compensate all the countries that have suffered from this.
“It is clear that it [the virus] was found in Wuhan. But whose laboratory was the one in Wuhan? American.
“They were funding it there.”
Mr Volodin has claimed the US was likely to have conducted research on virus modelling which should be stopped to prevent the world becoming “hostage” to more deadly diseases.
If such research is not stopped, the world "will be held hostage to another similar situation,” he claimed.
It comes after the lead investigator on the World Health Organisation team investigating the origins of the pandemic admitted a lab leak theory is "definitely NOT off the table".
Dr Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO team in Wuhan, said they didn't get "hard facts or detailed data" from the Chinese lab at the centre of a storm over the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.
Embarek, an expert on animal diseases and food safety, stressed he was skeptical of the theory that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – but admitted it was still a possibility.
The WIV is known to have been experimenting with bat coronaviruses and creating infectious hybrid strains for tests – and is located just a stone's throw from where the virus first emerged in December 2019.
What do we know about the Wuhan Institure of Virology?
THE WUHAN Institute of Virology is the highest security lab of its kind in all of China – and can be found right at the heart of the origins of the global pandemic.
Various theories have been swirling about the lab, which is headed up by Chinese scientist Dr Shi Zhengli, known as “Bat Woman”.
Most scientists do not believe the virus leaked from the lab, and the lab itself has categorically denied the claims.
The lab specialised in bat-borne viruses and had been carrying out experiences on them since 2015.
Airlocks, full body suits, and chemical showers are required before entering and leaving the lab – the first in China to be accredited with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4).
BSL-4 labs are the only places in the world where scientists can study diseases that have no cure.
Scientists from the lab even tested mysterious
virus which killed three miners 1,000 miles away in Yunnan province back in 2012.
It has been suggested this fatal mystery bug may have been the true origin of Covid-19.
Experts at the lab also engineered a new type of hybrid 'super-virus' that can infect humans in 2015, according to medical journal Nature Medicine
Despite fears surrounding the research, the study was designed to show the risk of viruses carried by bats which could be transmitted to humans.
There is no suggestion the facility's 2015 work is linked to the pandemic.
The lab was also recruiting new scientists to probe coronaviruses in bats just seven days before the outbreak.
China has began tightening security around its biolabs with President Xi Jinping saying it was a “national security” issue to improve scientific safety at a meeting last February.
Last month, a WHO scientist who was also part of the team sent to Wuhan stressed that the leak hypothesis remains on the table.
Last month, a WHO scientist who was also part of the team sent to Wuhan stressed that the leak hypothesis remains on the table.
Professor John Watson appeared BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show and he said additional investigations were needed to look at a potential leak from the WIV "in more detail".
"That's a hypothesis that remains on the table and could certainly have further work done on it," Prof Watson told Marr.
He revealed that the Communist Party refused to hand over raw data that was requested by the mission.
The New York Times also reported that Chinese officials had urged the WHO team to “embrace the government’s narrative about the source of the virus”.
Mr Volodin has also said the US had labs in Georgia and Eastern Europe which "should be placed under control”.
He told Golikova: "These matters should be raised. Let us have a closer look at them.”
Senior Russian politician Volodin is a Putin-loyalist who has been tipped as a possible successor as Kremlin leader.
He has been speaker since 2016 and previously served as a deputy prime minister and deputy chief of the presidential administration.
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