The Soviet Union covertly operated the world's largest, longest, and most sophisticated biological weapons program, thereby violating its obligations as a party to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.[1] The program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by Russia after that.[1][2]
By 1960, numerous BW research facilities existed throughout the Soviet Union. Although the USSR also signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Soviets subsequently augmented their biowarfare programs. Over the course of its history, the Soviet program is known to have weaponized and stockpiled the following bio-agents[3] (and to have pursued basic research on many more):
Bacillus anthracis (anthrax)[4]
Yersinia pestis (plague)[4]
Francisella tularensis (tularemia)
Burkholderia mallei (glanders)
Brucella sp. (brucellosis)
Coxiella burnetii (Q-fever)
Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE)
Botulinum toxin
Staphylococcal enterotoxin B
Smallpox[4][5]
Marburg virus
Orthopoxvirus[4]
These programs became immense and were conducted at dozens of secret sites employing up to 65,000 people.[1] Annualized production capacity for weaponized smallpox, for example, was 90 to 100 tons. In the 1980s and 1990s, many of these agents were genetically altered to resist heat, cold, and antibiotics. In the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin admitted to an offensive biological weapons program as well as to the true nature of the Sverdlovsk biological weapons accident of 1979, which had resulted in the deaths of at least 64 people. Defecting Soviet bioweaponeers such as Vladimir Pasechnik and Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov confirmed that the program had been massive and still existed. In 1992, a Trilateral Agreement was signed with the United States and the United Kingdom promising to end biological weapons programs and convert facilities to benevolent purposes, but compliance with the agreement—and the fate of the former Soviet bio-agents and facilities—is still mostly undocumented.
^ abcLeitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R., & Kuhn, J. (2012). Conclusion. In The Soviet Biological Weapons Program (pp. 698-712). Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbscf.30
^"2021 Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments". United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
^Cook, Michelle Stem and Amy F. Woolf (April 10, 2002), Preventing Proliferation of Biological Weapons: U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet States, (Congressional Research Service Report for Congress), pg 3.
^ abcdCite error: The named reference kelly02 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"What happened after an explosion at a Russian disease research lab called VECTOR?". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 27 November 2019.
and 28 Related for: Soviet biological weapons program information
The Soviet Union covertly operated the world's largest, longest, and most sophisticated biologicalweaponsprogram, thereby violating its obligations as...
1972 BiologicalWeapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. The Sovietbiologicalweaponsprogram violated the BiologicalWeapons Convention...
built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Over the course of its 27-year history, the programweaponized and stockpiled seven bio-agents...
inherited offensive biologicalweaponsprogram. The agreement's objective was to uncover details about the Soviet'sbiologicalweaponsprogram and to verify...
Shoham, D.; Wolfson, Z. (October–December 2004). "The Russian BiologicalWeaponsProgram: Vanished or Disappeared?". Critical Reviews in Microbiology....
extensive biologicalweapons (BW) program in Iraq in the early 1980s, despite having signed (but not ratified until 1991) the BiologicalWeapons Convention...
split between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In 1954, the Soviet Union constructed a biologicalweapons test site called Aralsk-7 there and on the neighbouring...
humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biologicalweapons (often termed "bio-weapons", "biological threat agents", or "bio-agents") are living organisms...
nuclear program, Kazakhstan was also a prominent site of Sovietprograms of biological (only Biopreparat outside of Russia) and chemical weapons. The former...
facility. At least in Soviet times the facility was a nexus for biological warfare research (see Sovietbiologicalweaponsprogram), though the nature of...
and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. (By 1960, the Sovietbiologicalweaponsprogram also included numerous other research and operational facilities...
(2012). The SovietBiologicalWeaponsProgram: A History. Harvard University Press. Leitenberg, M. (2012). North Korean Genocide, Nuclear Weapons, and Food...
world that the Soviet Union had embarked upon an offensive programme aimed at the development and large-scale production of biologicalweapons. Sverdlovsk...
500 and housed scientists and employees of the Soviet Union's top-secret Aralsk-7 biologicalweapons research and test site. Brian Hayes, a biochemical...
not ratify it. China acceded to the BiologicalWeapons Convention (BWC) in 1984 and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997. The number...
Biologicalweapons are pathogens used as weapons. In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and biotoxins are also included among the...
developing novel biologicalweapons Article from James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies report: "FORMER SOVIETBIOLOGICALWEAPONS FACILITIES IN...
accounting of the former Sovietbiologicalweaponsprogram. During a CIA debriefing, Alibek described the Soviet efforts to weaponize a particularly virulent...
into weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons under the apartheid government. South Africa’s nuclear weapons doctrine...
The Institute of Applied Biochemistry is a research laboratory and bioweapons production facility located in Omutninsk, Kirov Oblast. For a time in the...
"Nuclear Weapons States" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons...
six to seven nuclear weapons per year. North Korea has also stockpiled a significant quantity of chemical and biologicalweapons. In 2003, North Korea...
Poland is not known or believed to possess weapons of mass destruction. During the Cold War, Soviet nuclear warheads were stockpiled in Poland and designated...
always expecting the KGB (or the later FSB) to deal with him. Sovietbiologicalweaponsprogram List of Eastern Bloc defectors Preston, Richard (9 March 1998)...
producing such weapons has increased. The Soviet Union continued research and production of offensive biologicalweapons in a program called Biopreparat...