Russia's Foreign Ministry on Friday accused the U.S. of using a secret facility in a former Soviet satellite state to develop biological weapons that will target Russia.

Russian officials allege that the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center in Georgia, a Eurasian country that has been in a territorial dispute with Russia since 2008, is being used to the develop biological weapons that are banned under international law. U.S. officials have denied this charge, an accusation that comes on the heels of Russia’s top diplomat suggesting that a Western power would stage a biological attack and blame it on Moscow.

“[The laboratory] is being used in its interests to study the pathogens of particularly dangerous, infectious diseases," the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday in a statement carried by state-run media. “The U.S. provides no information on these dual-use activities as part of the confidence-building measures of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. All that is happening in close proximity to Russia’s borders, which we cannot fail to take into account, when analyzing the situation for the purpose of national security."

That’s the second time this week that Russia has raised suspicions about the Georgia facility, after the Defense Ministry alleged Thursday that 49 people died at the facility due to illicit research.

"In fact, the simultaneous death of a large number of volunteers is reason to believe that a highly toxic chemical drug or a highly lethal biological agent was assessed under the guise of medical treatment at the Lugar Center," Gen. Igor Kirillov said.

The U.S. denied the charge as just the latest installment in an “imaginative and false Russian disinformation campaign” on Thursday.

"The mission of the Lugar Center is to contribute to protection of citizens from biological threats, promote public and animal health through infectious disease detection, epidemiological surveillance, and research for the benefit of Georgia, the Caucasus region and the global community," Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said, according to ABC.

The allegations over the Lugar Center mirrors the controversy that arose following the attempted assassination of a former Russian military intelligence officer in Salisbury, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May blamed Russia for the use of “a military-grade nerve agent” in the attack. Russian officials replied that the toxin might have been developed by the British at one of the laboratories authorized under international law to research chemical weapons and their antidotes.

“I will not engage in an argument over self-evident facts,” U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the U.N. Security Council in the course of the monthslong debate over chemical weapons attacks in Syria and Salisbury. “I will not trade accusations of shameful behavior with those who have no shame.”

Russia has denied any violations of international law, maintaining instead that Western powers are staging chemical weapons attacks and other controversies in order to embarrass Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

“The way things are developing gives us reason to think that nothing can be excluded today, including a provocation involving biological weapons,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week.

Lavrov raised the specter of a biological attack just weeks after Haley suggested that Russia makes such accusations preemptively, in order to blame Western powers for impending attacks by Russia or its allies in Syria.

“In fact, if the past is any guide, the Syrian and Russian attempts to blame others for the use of chemical agents is an indication that the Syrian regime still believes it can use these horrific weapons with impunity and an indication that the Syrian regime may preparing to use these horrific weapons in future attacks,” she said at September 6 meeting of the Security Council. “No one — I repeat — no one is fooled.”