The Biological Weapons Convention is the world’s premier bio-weapons traeaty, binding most countries in the world to banning them. Seemingly, the treaty enjoys near universal acceptance since it entered into effect in 1975. Its crowning achievement is Article I. Article I obliges members to “never under any circumstances” allow the development of scheduled biological weapons. However, this treaty does not necessarily ensure the world is free of these weapons. The United States has accused the Russian Federation and its predecessor, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, of having prepared and retained a consistent offensive bio-weapons program before, during, and after the drafting of the Convention [source]. The Russian Federation has denied this and countered with its own accusations, but evidence has emerged supporting the US’ accusation.
1.0. Biopreparat
The All-Union Science Production Association Biopreparat, translating directly to “biological preparation” in Russian, was the Soviet Union’s biowarfare program. It is the direct ancestor to the Russian bio-weapons program today. The Soviet Union founded Biopreparat as a state concern in 1973. This founding came after the Soviet Union had already signed the Biological Weapons Convention a year before. The Union founded Biopreparat to take the lead in global biotechnology production. Being the primary producer of biotechnology in the country, Biopreparat had the Soviet Union’s top biologists and technicians, and served as a cover for an offensive bio-weapons program of a scale unseen before [source].
30,000 employees worked in the organisation’s vaccines and testing programs. Among these 30,000 employees were the Union’s top pathogen specialists, who developed strains of influenza, Ebola, and bubonic plague. Alongside this, Biopreparat’s weaponized anthrax program was the largest in the world by the 1980s [source]. US intelligence agencies were aware of Biopreparat’s bio-weapons programs thanks to the 1979 anthrax leak in Sverdlovsk [source]. However, the scale of the programs were not clear until several defections that occurred after the Soviet Union’s fall.
1.1. Research Extent
Many key pathogen specialists and administrators involved with Biopreparat defected to countries like the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1990s. These defectors revealed that not only did these programs exist on the foundation of research from as far back as 1929, but that the program was developing its strains of anthrax and even smallpox to be aerosolized for easy delivery [source].
Until its collapse, the Biopreparat program developed more experience with bio-weapons research and manufacturing than any other similar program by “many times” [source]. In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, many of its researchers and specialists possessed vast experience with the field and emigrated to various different countries, some of which helped found the modern era of biotechnology companies. However, many attempted to sell their knowledge to other countries, such as the People’s Republic of China, and others stayed long enough to find the Russian Federation in need of their expertise again [source].
2.0. What Happened to Biopreparat?
Under President Boris Yeltsin in 1992, the Russian Federation formally admitted to the existence of the Soviet bio-weapons program under Biopreparat. Further yet, it led an effort to not only have Western powers inspect these labs, but also to divest all biotechnology facilities from Biopreparat [source]. Records suggest that Biopreparat was divested of these facilities, playing a purely administrative role in exports control. Even so, some reports indicate that the Russian Ministry of Defence prevented the destruction of the Russian bio-weapons program. However, much is unclear about the divestment and destruction process of the Biopreparat facilities. This is to the extent that American sources feared that products from the program were proliferating during the 1990s [source].
President Yeltsin formalised a Western investigation of these bio-weapons sites to confirm their total destruction in the Trilateral Agreement. However, there is no known follow-through on the Trilateral Agreement [source]. Even during Yeltsin’s administration, Russia denied its own admission at the Fourth Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Review Conference. Later, President Vladimir Putin moved to retract the admission of any offensive bioweapons program having ever existed in 1999, maintaining this denial to this day [source].
2.1. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program
The Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991 in the United States founded the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. The results of this program helped ensure that the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia could cooperate to neutralise nuclear, chemical and biological stockpiles. This helped assuage Western fears about possibly undestroyed Biopreparat stockpiles. Even so, the Russian Federation never allowed the US or the UK to officially investigate the program’s main facilities. As a result, the US found unsatisfactory results in confirming the end of all Russian bio-weapons programs [source].
These main facilities were Sergiev Posad-6, near Moscow, Yekaterinburg-19 in Sverdlovsk, the Institute of Military Medicine in St. Petersburg, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Russian Army in Kirov. Today, intelligence groups suspect these facilities to continue to play a role in the modern Russian bio-weapons program [source]. Sources suggest that these facilities continue to receive updates. However, some like Sergiev Posad-6 suffer from serious damage from a lack of upkeep despite continued use. Continued damage has begun causing concern about leaks among Russian domestic news sources [source].
3.0. The Modern Russian Bio-weapons Program
The Russian Federation spent much of the 1990s downsizing and divesting Biopreparat’s facilities, rededicating many facilities to civilian research. However, the election of Vladimir Putin to the presidency in 1999 was the beginning of the end of this era. By 1999, President Putin had designated Sergiev Posad-6 and a facility called the Anti Plague Institute as “bio-preparedness sites”. This designation allowed them to handle dual use biological material and conduct aerosolization experiments [source].
This bio-preparedness initiative would grow to include more and more facilities. These facilities fell under a number of initiatives that empowered military authorities to advance research efforts into dangerous dual use material, especially under the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Protection Troops. This would lead to the founding of NBC Protection Troops’ primary supporting organisation, the 48th Central Scientific Research Institute (48CSRI). The Kremlin placed 48CSRI under the Ministry of Defence, sitting directly under the command of the Russian General Staff [source].
A primary early indication of the renewed bio-weapons program under 48CSRI came through the development of “non lethal” bio-weapons. The Russian military intended many of these non lethal bio-weapons to cause damage to sensory organs. They were even intended to damage hardware through dissolving lubricants and other essential organic compounds [source].
3.1. Core Mechanisms of the Russian Bio-weapons Program
These programs were likely driven by Russian experiences in the Chechen Wars and the desire to combat terrorist groups through new methods in their aftermath. However, they did not signal a replacement to the true bio-weapons program. Instead, they were merely built on top of them through 48CSRI’s facilities in Sergiev Posad-6, Kirov and Yekaterinburg-19. The Kremlin would go on to further support this program by opening an additional facility in St. Petersburg [source].
These facilities also collaborate closely with other formerly Biopreparat facilities like the Anti Plague Institute and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR [source]. VECTOR possesses one of two known smallpox strain repositories. The only other known storage location is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the American city of Atlanta [source].
4.0. Developments in Collaboration with the Security Apparatus
Much of the infrastructure set up for the Russian bio-weapons program in the early 2000s would culminate in the project of 48CSRI’s collaboration with the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the secretive Project Toledo [source]. In conjunction with the FSB’s Unit 68240 R&D program under Major General Vladimir Bogdanov, the 48CSRI collaborated with its subsidiary Unit 34435. Together, they worked on strains of Ebola, MERS, Marburg virus, and anthrax [source]. Both Unit 68240 and 48CSRI are confirmed to have direct connections with 33rd Central Research Institute. The 33rd Central Research Institute was responsible for the development of Novichok chemical weapons [source].
OpenFacto’s open source reporting indicates that Unit 34435’s expertise with the field of biological and chemical weapons gave it a role in the poisoning of Alexey Navalny [source]. As a result of this assassination attempt, 48CSRI and the FSB’s Unit 68240, alongside several formerly Biopreparat facilities, are under heavy sanctions from the United States as of 2021 [source].
Additionally, the Russian state continues a campaign of publically accusing the United States of maintaining an offensive bio-weapons program. Supposedly, the US maintains biolabs for the program in key locations across the world, like Ukraine [source]. The continued funding of the Russian “bio-defense” cover for 48CSRI and other important biowarfare programs also relies on this accusation. Officials in the Russian government have promoted fears of “genetically tailored” bio-weapons created for use against the Russian population [source]. These fears have helped justify continued bio-defense program funding. Defence scholars in the United States have argued that this is likely a strategy of deflection. These accusations additionally weaken international norms surronding the Biological Weapons Convention [source].
5.0. Conclusion
Though the extent of the modern Russian bio-weapons program is hidden, American State Department intelligence sources believe it to be a significant threat. All open source reporting on the program has revealed a deeply troubling existing infrastructure with continued reports of weapons development since the early 2000s. Furthermore, the historical context of the supposed destruction of Biopreparat’s bio-weapons program is deeply suspicious. This is to the point that there is no confirmation that such destruction ever occurred with four massive military-biological facilities. As a result, it’s likely that the Russian bio-weapons program exists in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, but its scale remains yet to be seen.
