Russian officials have blocked recent U.S. attempts to learn more about certain aspects of the former Soviet biological weapons program, including a genetically modified strain of anthrax that Russia has previously promised to give the United States, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) said Friday (see GSN, Aug. 19).

Lugar said he was unsuccessful, during visit last month of a U.S. congressional delegation to Russia, in resolving a five-year dispute over the strain of genetically modified anthrax (see GSN, Aug. 19).  The U.S. Defense Department entered into contract in 1997 with the Russian State Research Center for Applied Microbiology, which developed the strain, to obtain a sample.  Russia, however, has refused to give the United States a sample, citing export laws.

Russian officials also blocked an attempt by the U.S. delegation to visit one of four military-run biological research facilities, which have remained closed to U.S. access despite more than 10 years of U.S.-Russian cooperation on nonproliferation, according to the Washington Post.

Even though there has been progress on several proliferation concerns, the refusals highlighted lingering “bureaucratic opposition” to cooperation on the war on terrorism promised by Russian and U.S. Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush during a summit last November, Lugar said.

“It shows that Putin is far ahead of much of Russia’s bureaucracy on these matters,” he said (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, Sept. 8).

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