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Updated February 2010
Biological Overview
The Soviet Union ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1975. Nevertheless, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Moscow continued to secretly develop an offensive biological weapons (BW) capability that became the largest in the world. Its biological warfare 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. Pathogens were designed to attack human, agricultural and environmental targets. In wartime, formulated agents would have been loaded into a variety of delivery systems, including aerial bombs, ballistic missile warheads and spray tanks.
The Soviet BW program began in the 1920s when the Red Army ordered Soviet scientists to conduct research into the possible deployment of Typhus as a weapon. The program then expanded in the 1930s, at which point it is alleged that testing was carried out on prisoners in Soviet labor camps. Following WWII, however, the primary testing site for biological weapons became Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea, the legacy of which is now a major cause of concern for the local population. 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 its separate components, creating a complicated mosaic of secret institutions and projects. This enabled the Soviet authorities to utilize 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 by top-secret decree. 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 both MOD and Biopreparat institutes, and developed vaccines 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 of personnel. Due to the compartmentalization of the Soviet BW program and the lack of inventory of former Soviet BW facilities, the exact 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. Today, most of the former BW facilities continue to function but they focus 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. Although these fears persist, a number of cooperative programs have now been developed to help mitigate the risk from the proliferation of knowledge and expertise.
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:
- Nuclear Threat Initiative
- US Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR)
- US Department of State's BioIndustry Initiative program (BII)
- US Department of Energy's Initiative for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) program
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS) Biotechnology Engagement Program (BTEP)
- Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF)
- International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC)
- European Union nations on a bilateral basis through the G8 Global
Partnership Against Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. The EU
contribution to the G8 Global Partnership is provided through two different
mechanisms:
European Community Technical Assistance for the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS) Program European Union Joint Action on nonproliferation and Russian Federation - International Association for the Promotion of Cooperation with Scientists from the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (INTAS)
- The European Union's INCO-COPERNICUS program
- Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOW)
- German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
- UK Royal Society
Today, the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) is a major facilitator of collaborative research projects between Russian scientists and their peers in Europe, North America and Asia. By allocating research grants, it aims to provide scientists with enough income to dissuade them from proliferating their knowledge and expertise. Although it can be difficult to establish metrics for success, these efforts do appear to have been beneficial.
However, despite there being some progress, even today the full extent of the Soviet biological weapons program remains unknown. The high-levels of secrecy, even between agencies, coupled with the fact that oversight for research and production fell under multiple government departments, means that gaining a true understanding of all of its disparate elements will continue to pose a significant challenge.
Sources:
[1] Judith Miller and William J. Broad, "Iranians,
Bioweapons in Mind, Lure Needy Ex-Soviet Scientists," New York Times,
December 8, 1998.
[2] Judith Miller, "Russian Biologist Denies Work In Iran
On Germ Weapons," New York Times, January 19, 1999.
[3] Serguei Popov
and Marina Voronova, "Russian Bioweapons: Still the Best-Kept Secret?
Nonproliferation Review, (Fall 2004), Vol. 11, No. 3.
[4] 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).
[5] 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.
[6] "Russian Federation Production Capability," Jane's CBRN
Assessments, 27 July 2009, www.janes.com.
[7] Michael Moodie, "The
Soviet Union, Russia, and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention,"
Nonproliferation Review, (Spring 2001), Vol. 8, No. 1.
[8] Michelle Stem Cook and Amy F. Woolf, "Preventing Proliferation of Biological
Weapons: U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet States," Congressional
Research Service Report for Congress, April 2002.
This material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and
does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently
verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2010 by MIIS.
