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The Russian Federation Case Study

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Toxin and Bioregulator Weapons

Part of the book series: Global Issues ((GLOISS))

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Abstract

This chapter begins with an overview of the Soviet Union’s enormous clandestine biological weapons programme which reportedly included development of lethal and “less lethal” toxin and bioregulator weapons. Following termination of the Soviet biological and chemical weapons programmes in the 1990s, concerns were raised about remaining Russian toxin and bioregulator weapon research and development capabilities. The 2020 introduction of US sanctions against certain Russian research establishments is noted before a review is undertaken of contemporary potential dual-use research on ‘classic’ and ‘novel’ toxins, including by establishments previously associated with the Soviet biological weapons programme.

The 2002 Russian employment of an incapacitating (CNS-acting) weapon is described along with subsequent potentially relevant research and Russia’s rejection of the 2021 CWC States Parties’ decision prohibiting use of such aerosolised weapons in law enforcement. Additional concerns explored relate to previous reported development by at least one Russian company of ‘wide area’ RCA means of delivery, a number of which potentially could deliver or be adapted to deliver RCAs of biological origin or their synthetic analogues over large areas or extended distances. It is concluded that there remain considerable concerns about dual-use Russian research on toxins and bioregulators and that these concerns are compounded by a lack of transparency about such activities.

Following an information request by the authors, on 20 October 2021, the Russian Federation Government provided information on issues covered by the case study. Relevant extracts of this response are incorporated in the case study and a copy of Russia’s response in full is contained in an Appendix of this publication.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    United States (2020) Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. State Department, June, p. 60; United States (2021) Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. State Department, April, p. 50; United States (2022) Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, State Department. April, p. 38.

  2. 2.

    Tucker, J. (1999) Bioweapons from Russia: Stemming the Flow. Issues in Science and Technology, XV(3), Spring.

  3. 3.

    United States (2020) op. cit. p. 60; United States (2021) op. cit. p. 50; United States (2022) op. cit. p. 39.

  4. 4.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It. Random House, New York.

  5. 5.

    United States (2020) op. cit. p. 60; United States, (2021) op. cit. p. 50; United States, (2021) op. cit. p. 39.

  6. 6.

    Alibek, K.and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. pp. 297–298. It should be noted that these Soviet research and development activities are also described as “programs” rather than “projects” i.e. Program Bonfire, Program Factor and Program Flute.

  7. 7.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 302.

  8. 8.

    Rozsa, L and Nixdorff, K. (2006) Biological Weapons in Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact Countries, pp. 157–168 in M. Wheelis et al. (Eds.), Deadly Cultures, Biological Weapons Since 1945. Harvard University Press, Harvard.

  9. 9.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. pp. 173–174.

  10. 10.

    Director of Central Intelligence (1982) Use of Toxins and Other Lethal Chemicals in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan. Special National Intelligence Estimate, 11/50/37–82, Vol 2. 26 February.

  11. 11.

    Meselson, M. and Robinson, J.P. (2008) The Yellow Rain Affair: lessons from a discredited allegation, in Clunan, A. Lavoy, P, and Martin, S. (Eds.) Terrorism, War, or Disease? Unravelling the Use of Biological Weapons. Stanford University Press, Stanford. pp. 72–96.

  12. 12.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 154.

  13. 13.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 164.

  14. 14.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. pp. 154–155.

  15. 15.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 155; see also Interview: Sergei Popov, Journal of Homeland Security, November 1, 2000 (updated November 19, 2002). Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20110719234905/www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/interviews/popovinterview_001107.htm; Davis, C. (1999) Nuclear Blindness: An Overview of the Biological Weapons Programs of the Former Soviet Union and Iraq. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 5(4), 510.

  16. 16.

    Interview: Serguei Popov (2000) op. cit.; Alibek and Handelman (1999) op. cit. pp. 163–167.

  17. 17.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 164.

  18. 18.

    Alibek,K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. pp. 166–167.

  19. 19.

    Gilsdorf, J. and Zilinskas, R. (2005) New Considerations in Infectious Disease Outbreaks: The Threat of Genetically Modified Microbes. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 40(8), 1 and 1160–1165.

  20. 20.

    Interview: Sergei Popov (2000) op. cit. p. 11.

  21. 21.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. pp. 171–172 and p. 302; See also Birstein, V. J. (2001) The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. p. 107.

  22. 22.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 302.

  23. 23.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 302.

  24. 24.

    Alibek, K. and Handelman, S. (1999) op. cit. p. 164.

  25. 25.

    United States (2022) op. cit. p. 39; United States (2021) op. cit. p. 50; see also Viktor Litovkin, “Yeltsin Bans Work on Bacteriological Weapons. This Means: Work Was Under Way, and We Were Deceived” [in Russian], Izvestiya, April 27, 1992, as cited in Zilinskas, R. (2016) The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today’s Russia. Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Occasional Paper, No. 11. National Defense University Press, July. footnote 131, pp. 44.

  26. 26.

    Dahlburg, J. (1992) Russia Admits It Violated Pact on Biological Warfare. Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1992.

  27. 27.

    See: The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) at a Glance, Arms Control Association, Last Reviewed: April 2020, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcglance; Sanders-Zakre, A. (2017) Russia Destroys Last Chemical Weapons. Arms Control Today, November, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-11/news/russia-destroys-last-chemical-weapons; National Threat Initiative, Russia, Chemical, https://www.nti.org/learn/countries/russia/chemical/ (accessed 6 July 2021).

  28. 28.

    Sanders-Zakre, A. (2017) op. cit.

  29. 29.

    Zilinskas, R. (2016) op. cit. pp. 44.

  30. 30.

    As cited in United States (2005), Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. U.S. Department of State, August.

  31. 31.

    Bronson, L. (2004) Cooperative threat reduction program. Testimony of Lisa Bronson, Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Technology Security Policy and Counterproliferation before the Senate Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, 10 March.

  32. 32.

    Hart, J. (2006) The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, pp. 132–156 in M. Wheelis et al. (Eds.) Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945. Harvard University Press, Harvard. pp. 154–155.

  33. 33.

    Davis, C. (2014) Assessing the biological weapons threat: Russia and beyond. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 7 May.

  34. 34.

    Original article [in Russian] was reprinted by the following source: Vladimir Putin, “Being Strong: National Security Guarantees for Russia,” Rt.com, 20 February 2012. Available at http://rt.com/politics/official-word/strong-putin-military-russia-711/.

  35. 35.

    Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Holds a Meeting on the Tasks He Set in His Articles as a Presidential Candidate. Transcript, March 22, 2012. Archive of the Official Site of the 2008–2012 Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, available at http://archive.premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/18490.

  36. 36.

    Zilinskas, R. A. (2016) op. cit. p. 45; see also Zilinkas, R. A. (2012) Take Russia to ‘task’ on bioweapons transparency. Nature Medicine, 18(6); Hoffman, D. (2012) Genetic Weapons, You Say? Foreign Policy, 27 March 2012; Leitenberg, M. (2021) False allegations of biological-weapons use from Putin’s Russia. The Nonproliferation Review, 12 October 2021, DOI: 10.1080/10736700.2021.1964755.

  37. 37.

    Zilinkas, R. A. (2012) op. cit.

  38. 38.

    For further discussion see: Leitenberg, M. (2021) op. cit; NTI (2014), Russia Rejects Bioweapons Talk in U.S. Congress as ‘Propaganda’, 13 May 2014  .

  39. 39.

    US Export Administration Regulations, Part 744, Supplement No. 4, see: US Federal Register (2020), Addition of Entities to the Entity List, and Revision of Entries on the Entity List, August 27, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/27/2020-18909/addition-of-entities-to-the-entity-list-and-revision-ofentries-on-the-entity-list; see also United States (2021) op. cit. p. 52; United States (2022) op. cit. p. 40.

  40. 40.

    US Federal Register (2020) Addition of Entities to the Entity List, and Revision of Entries on the Entity List, August 27, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/27/2020-18909/addition-of-entities-to-the-entity-list-and-revision-ofentries-on-the-entity-list; see also United States (2021) April, op. cit. p. 52; United States (2022) op. cit. p. 40.

  41. 41.

    Global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction, plenary meeting (2020) Our global partnership against chemical weapons abuses: See remarks of Dr. Christopher Ashley Ford, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, November 12, 2020; both available at https://2017-2021.state.gov/our-global-partnership-against-chemical-weapons-abuses/index.html.

  42. 42.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2021) op. cit. p. 50; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. p. 38.

  43. 43.

    See for example, Chernova, E. et al. (2017) Dolichospermum and Aphanizomenon as neurotoxin producers in some Russian Freshwaters. Toxicon, 130, 47–55. p. 53.

  44. 44.

    Melnikova, D. I. et al. (2021) The First Data on the Complete Genome of a Tetrodotoxin-Producing Bacterium. Toxins, 13, 410. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins13060410. pp. 6–7.

  45. 45.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. p. 39; similar statements were made in United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2019) op. cit., p. 49; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2020) op. cit. p. 62: United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2021) op. cit. p. 51.

  46. 46.

    It should be noted that the term “anti-plague” in the Soviet biodefence programme was used broadly to indicate not only activities to combat the disease casued by Yersinia pestis , but also other dangerous endemic and exotic diseases caused by viruses and bacteria.

  47. 47.

    Zilinskas, R. A. and Mauger, P (2018) Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia. Lynne Rienner, Boulder. pp. 152–153.

  48. 48.

    Zilinskas, R. A. and Mauger, P. (2018) op. cit. p. 153.

  49. 49.

    Godakova, S. A. et al. (2019) Camelid VHHs Fused to Human Fc Fragments Provide Long Term Protection Against Botulinum Neurotoxin in Mice. Toxins, 11, 464; doi:10.3390/toxins1180464.

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    See for example, Vinogradova, I. D. et al. (1983) Preparation of neurotoxin and hemagglutinin for Clostridium botulinum A and characterization of its neurotoxin. Biokhimila, 48(5), 788–796; Vinogradaova, I. D. et al. (1984) Characterization of the subunits of botulinum neurotoxin type A. Biokhimlia, 49(3), 426–431.

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    Birstein, V. J. (2001) The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press, Boulder. p. 414. See also “The Key Role of Ovchinnikov” pp. 18–25 in Zilinskas, R. A. (2016) op. cit.

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    Grishin, E. V. et al. (1973) Amino Acid Sequence of Neurotoxin from Naja Naja Oxiana Venom. FEBS Letters, 36(1), 77–78.

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    Perry Robinson, J. (2012) “Incapacitating chemical agents” in context: an historical overview of states policy in: Incapacitating chemical agents: Law enforcement, human rights law and policy perspectives. Montreux, Switzerland, 24th–26th April, p. 92; Crowley, M. and Dando, M. R. (2014) op. cit., pp. 42–43.

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  68. 68.

    Kuzmina, N., Kuzmin, V. (2011) Development of concepts on the interaction of drugs with opioid receptors. Russian Chemistry Reviews, 80, 145–169. For further examples see: Riches, J. et al. (2012) op. cit.; Crowley, M. and Dando, M. R. (2014) op. cit. p. 49.

  69. 69.

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  70. 70.

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  71. 71.

    Russian Delegation to the UN Conference on Disarmament, response to an information request from the University of Bradford, 20 October 2021.

  72. 72.

    OPCW (2018) Report of the Scientific Advisory Board on developments in science and technology for the Fourth Review Conference, RC-4/DG.1, 30 April, paragraph 27.

  73. 73.

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  74. 74.

    OPCW (2021) Joint Statement on behalf of 4 Delegations delivered by the Delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the 26th Session of the Conference of States Parties of the OPCW under the Subitem 26.1 “Any Other Business” on the Draft Decision entitled “Understanding Regarding the Aerosolized Use of Central Nervous System-Acting Chemicals for Law Enforcement Purposes”, 29 November.

  75. 75.

    There have been reports of excessive or inappropriate use of unidentified ‘limited area’ OC means of delivery by Russian law enforcement officials. Such practice would appear to contravene relevant human rights law and standards. See for example: Amos, H. ‘I Had to Breathe Through My Clothes’: Russian Police Pepper-Sprayed Protesters in a Cell. Moscow Times, 23 June 2017; Human Rights Watch (2021) Russia: Arbitrary Detentions at Pro-Navalny Protests, 22 April.

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    Non-lethal munitions section, Volume 12 “Ordnance and Munitions” (English language version), Russia’s Arms and Technologies. The XXI Century Encyclopedia, (version 2006.1eng). Arms and Technologies Publishing House, 5th May 2009.

  77. 77.

    Crowley, M. (2009) Dangerous Ambiguities: Regulation of Riot Control Agents and Incapacitants under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Bradford Non-lethal Weapons Research Project, October, pp. 108–110; Crowley, M. (2013) Drawing the line: regulation of ‘wide area’ riot control agent delivery mechanisms under the Chemical Weapons Convention, University of Bradford/Omega Research Foundation, April, pp. 25–38; Crowley, M. (2016) Chemical Control: Regulation of Incapacitating Chemical Agent Weapons, Riot Control Agents and their Means of Delivery. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2016, pp. 99–104.

  78. 78.

    OPCW, CWC (1993) op. cit. Article X, paragraph 4.

  79. 79.

    United Nations, Confidence Building Measures, Russian Federation, https://bwc-ecbm.unog.ch/state/russian-federation (accessed 25 April 2022).

  80. 80.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2019) op. cit. p. 49.

  81. 81.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2020) op. cit. p. 62; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2021) op. cit. p. 51; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. p. 40.

  82. 82.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. p. 40.

  83. 83.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2021) op. cit. p. 51; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. p. 39.

  84. 84.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2019) op. cit. p. 49; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2020) op. cit. p. 61; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2021) op. cit. p. 51; United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. p. 39.

  85. 85.

    United States Arms Control Compliance Report (2022) op. cit. pp. 39–40.

  86. 86.

    Russian Delegation to the UN Conference on Disarmament, response to an information request from the University of Bradford, 20 October 2021.

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  1. Division of Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

    Michael Crowley & Malcolm R. Dando

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Crowley, M., Dando, M.R. (2022). The Russian Federation Case Study. In: Toxin and Bioregulator Weapons. Global Issues. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10164-9_6

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