

The US Air Force recently put out a request for samples of DNA and RNA from Russians and people of Russian descent. Their reasons are unclear. This story, fairly predictably, has got very little coverage in the MSM…none, in fact. Vladimir Putin mentioned it in a speech, and there have been articles in the alternative media (The Duran and Zero Hedge have mentioned it, and some international networks such as RT, teleSur etc.)…but mainstream news? Totally silent.

This is not some “crazy conspiracy theory”, the request (pictured above) is publicly available on US government websites.

The lack of coverage of this issue in the MSM, while predictable, still serves to highlight how little objectivity our notionally free press really have. Can you imagine the headlines if Russia, China or Iran’s military had started doing research on British or American DNA samples?

The hysteria would be deafening.

So the question becomes…why? The memo states that the samples “must be Caucasian and Russian”, and that they will “not consider” samples from Ukraine. Why would that be the case? People are theorizing it’s for bio-weapons research, and that’s possible, there are other possibilities too.

None of them are benign.

We were sent the following open letter from Alexander Korobko, the director of Russia’s DNA Project, by a third-party. In it Mr Korobko asks all the important questions. We will let you know if any of them ever receive official answers.

Mr. Marcus Mattingly, US Air Force.

Cc: Mr. Donald Trump

Synovial Tissue / RNA Samples

Solicitation Number: FA3016-17-U-0164

Dear Mr. Mattingly,

I am a Russian journalist researching the aforementioned solicitation.

DNA analysis and archaeogenetics are somewhat of a home turf to me. My documentary about the Russian genetic origins of ancient Orcadians (the inhabitants of the Orkney Islands north of Scotland) was broadcast in several countries and has won a few awards. I owe that also to a top geneticist from Cambridge University who assisted me in my research.

I am very much puzzled with your solicitation. The situation is on the brink of a major international scandal. The US Air Force faces accusations of either developing bioweapons or practicing eugenics and, God forbid, of following in the footsteps of infamous Dr. Mengele. In the interests of fairness, I would like to offer your Department a chance to explain the nature of that solicitation.

Also, I would be grateful if you or your colleagues would kindly provide answers to the following questions:

1. The genetic pool in Russia is very diverse. People who look 100% “Caucasian” can have past “contributing” ethnicities ranging from, say, Iran/India to central Russia to a tribe in Yakutiya. For example, our Defence Minister Shoygu has a mixture of a Tuvan/Turkic Y-chromosome and a Slavic Russian mtDNA. A conspiracy theorist may even argue that it would be easier to design an “ethnic” weapon targeting his US counterpart, Mr. James Mattis since his both parents are from the same genetic pool, but even his more distant ancestors can comprise various surprising ethnicities from all over the place.

So, are you trying to develop a “targeted” genetic weapon against the Russians if such a thing is scientifically feasible at all?

2. Why do you need my compatriots’ synovial tissue? And why do you insist on samples from Russia, but not from Ukraine, as ethnically/genetically those are the same people?! I can provide you with plenty of conclusive genetic info to that effect.

3. Is the US Airforce being used as a tool in a psyop, a provocation? My consultant from Cambridge University can’t quite wrap his head around your tender, and there’s a feeling it may be a jeer wrapped in an enigma. In that case it would a very bad joke, a Nazi kind of humour, really.

4. Your spokesman explained that “the researchers are using the samples to conduct musculoskeletal research aimed at identifying the different biomarkers associated with injury and were not targeting Russians with the study”. The explanation was somewhat vague, so let me try to re-construct in no-nonsense terms and let me know if I understood him correctly. So some US company (which you can’t name, right?) sold you the first set of samples? You don’t know if they acquired them legally or illegally in Russia, but it was Russia because that’s where they could get them, could be any country, right? But now you (i.e. the US Airforce) need some supplementary biological “material”, which has to be from the same country to match the original samples? One problem there: you haven’t specified the part of Russia where the original stuff comes from, and as Russians’ DNA groups vary from one region to another often more widely than, say, from country to country in the EU, the tender is either unscientific as far as genetics go, or the explanation doesn’t make much sense, scientifically speaking…. which is it?

Looking forward to hearing from you and clearing up the matter, which has the potential of sparking a media equivalent of the Caribbean crisis.

With kindest regards,

Alexander Korobko

CEO, Russia’s DNA project