New Delhi, Mar 10 (IANS): Russia's Defence Ministry has claimed that experiments were carried out with samples of coronavirus from bats in biological laboratories in Ukraine.

"In the bio laboratories created and funded in Ukraine, as the documents show, experiments were carried out with samples of bat coronavirus," RT News quoted Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Ministry's chief spokesman, as saying.

Konashenkov said the Minitry would soon publish another package of documents on secret military biological activities of the US in Ukrainian territory and present the results of their examination.

"In the near future, we will publish another package of documents received from Ukrainian employees of biological laboratories and present the results of their examination," he said.

Konashenkov noted that "Russian experts have already studied all the documents on the transfer of human biomaterials taken in Ukraine to foreign countries on the instructions of American representatives".

"The presence of biological laboratories in Ukraine under the leadership of the US completely changes the role of Washington, it is an instrument of a direct threat to Russia," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had said earlier.

She added that such laboratories were the points of American military experiments in the biological field.

"This completely changes the picture of US involvement in the fate of Ukraine: it is not just an instrument of influence, it is not just an instrument of containment, it is an instrument of a direct threat to our country," she added.

Earlier, Russia had claimed that more than 30 laboratories in Lviv, Kharkiv and Poltava were working with dangerous infectious agents as part of the US-led military biological programme.