The Soviet Union ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1975. Nevertheless, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union continued to secretly develop an offensive biological weapons capability. Its secret biological warfare (BW) program possessed the capacity for wartime production of large quantities of a range of biological agents, including those that cause plague, tularemia, glanders, anthrax, smallpox, and Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis. In wartime, formulated agents would have been loaded into a variety of delivery systems, including aerial bombs and ballistic missile warheads.
The Soviet BW program started in the late 1920s. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Ministry of Defense (MOD) established a number of biological research institutes, including the Scientific-Technical Institute in Kirov, the Military-Technical Institute in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), and the Scientific-Research Institute in Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad). Although some of their activities had civilian uses, all of them were actively involved in BW-related research, development, and testing.
As the program expanded, different agencies were placed in charge of separate parts of it, creating a complicated mosaic of secret institutions and projects. Thus, Soviet authorities utilized a civilian organization, the Ministry of Agriculture, to conceal and manage an offensive BW program aimed at economically important crops and livestock. For this purpose, a number of institutes were established: the Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (Golitsyno, Moscow Oblast), the North Caucasus Scientific Research Institute of Phytopathology (Krasnodar Oblast), the Scientific Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute (Vladimir Oblast), and the Scientific Research Institute of Virology and Microbiology (Pokrov, Vladimir Oblast). The post-1972 Soviet BW program also utilized ostensibly civilian facilities subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Health (MOH), and the Main Administration of the Microbiological Industry under the Council of Ministers (Glavmikrobioprom), as well as the military institutes under the MOD.
Biopreparat, the organization responsible for about 40 civilian research and development facilities that worked on biological weapons development, was established in 1973. The leading Biopreparat facilities were the State Scientific Center of Applied Microbiology in Obolensk, the Institute of Immunological Studies in Lyubuchany, the State Scientific Center of Virology and Bacteriology (known as Vektor) near Novosibirsk, and the State Scientific Institute of Ultrapure Biological Preparations in St. Petersburg.
In addition to the aforementioned centers within the offensive part of the Soviet BW program, other facilities were involved in mainly defensive BW developments. The system of anti-plague research institutes and field monitoring stations under the authority of the Main Directorate of Quarantine Infections of the MOH included the Mikrob Scientific Research Anti-Plague Institute in Saratov, the Rostov Anti-Plague Institute, the Volgograd Scientific Research Anti-Plague Institute, and the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute for Siberia and the Far East. These institutes were mainly responsible for civilian epidemiological investigations, but some of them were also involved in the Soviet offensive BW program and were headed by military personnel.. They provided virulent strains of pathogens to the MOD and Biopreparat institutes and developed vaccines against and diagnostic materials for pathogens weaponized by the military and Biopreparat.
In total, the system comprised scores of research, development, production, and test facilities and employed tens of thousands personnel. Due to the compartmentalization of the Soviet BW program and the lack of inventory of former Soviet BW facilities, the number of facilities and their personnel are still unknown today.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 officially acknowledged violations of the BWC and banned further offensive BW work in Russia. Most of the now former BW facilities continue to function but today focus only on civilian research activities, often undertaken with international cooperation. Some of the former BW facilities, however, particularly those subordinated to the Russian MOD, do not participate in any international projects and have not permitted foreigners to visit them. This lack of transparency causes some Western officials to worry that although the BW agent stockpiles have been destroyed, activities that contravene the BWC may continue at MOD biological facilities in Russia.
Another proliferation concern is the possibility of "brain drain"--that former Soviet BW scientists might spread their knowledge to other states. According to reports in the New York Times citing Russian scientists and U.S. officials, Iran has attempted to hire Russian BW specialists to help it acquire biological weapons.
International Initiatives and Support Programs
In the mid-1990s, Western governments and international organizations began involving former Soviet BW facilities and its scientists in cooperative projects, aimed at preventing the proliferation of BW capabilities and promoting greater transparency of activities. These international activities include assistance and support with:
- Collaborative research - to prevent former BW scientists from selling their expertise to terrorist groups or proliferating states, and instead use their knowledge for peaceful purposes on commercial grounds and for mutual benefit to participants,
- Biosafety enhancement - to make facilities safer places in which to work,
- Biosecurity improvement - to consolidate and restrict access to pathogens by unauthorized persons,
- Dismantlement of infrastructure and BW equipment at some facilities.
These projects are supported by:
Key Sources:
Judith Miller and William J. Broad, "Iranians, Bioweapons in Mind, Lure Needy Ex-Soviet Scientists," New York Times, December 8, 1998.
Judith Miller, "Russian Biologist Denies Work In Iran On Germ Weapons," New York Times, January 19, 1999.
Serguei Popov and Marina Voronova, "Russian Bioweapons: Still the Best-Kept Secret? Nonproliferation Review, (Fall 2004), Vol. 11, No. 3.
Anthony Rimmington, "Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Soviet Union's BW Programme and its Implications for Contemporary Arms Control," the Journal of Slavic Studies, Vol.13, No.3 (September 2000).
Roger Roffey, Wilhelm Unge, Jenny Clevstrom and Kristina Westerdahl, Support to Threat Reduction of the Russian Biological Weapons Legacy - Conversion, Biodefense and the Role of Biopreparat, Swedish Defense Research Agency, Umeå, April 2003.
The Soviet Anti-plague system and the Anti-plague System in the Newly Independent States
International Assistance for Anti-plague Facilities in the Former Soviet Union to Prevent the Proliferation of Biological Weapons
The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
Toxic Archipelago: Preventing Proliferation from the Former Soviet Chemical and Biological Weapons Complexes
Biological Weapons: Effort to Reduce Former Soviet Threat Offers Benefits, Poses New Risks
Preventing the Proliferation of Chemical and Biological Weapon Materials and Know-How
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Updated January 2008 |
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