Defence & security, explained.
The spectre of biological weapons has been present since the 1920s (Getty Images)
Ignoring the real biowarfare threat
The sudden renovation at an old Soviet biological weapons site needs to be better explained.
Defence & security, explained.
The spectre of biological weapons has been present since the 1920s (Getty Images)
The sudden renovation at an old Soviet biological weapons site needs to be better explained.
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Ignoring the real biowarfare threatIgnoring the real biowarfare threat
In the northern winter of 2022, as Russian armour and troops massed on Ukraine’s borders, a highly effective psychological operation was reaching a crescendo. For several months, Russian diplomats had been warning that Ukraine was operating a string of covert “biolabs” with the help of the US Department of Defense. A biological attack on Russia, they claimed, was imminent.
Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Security Council, Vasily Nebenzya, insisted that Ukrainian forces intended to spread disease “using birds, bats, insects” and other means. Nebenzya clearly delighted in using the spectre of biological weapons to justify a military invasion, just as members of the George W. Bush administration had done 20 years earlier, at that very same UN venue. The “Ukraine biolabs story” soon gained traction in the United States, amplified by certain talk show hosts, Q-Anon and other once-fringe personalities, some of whom – come January 2025 – look set to occupy highly sensitive positions in the US intelligence community.
Of all the offensive biological weapons (BW) programs that are known to have existed, only one has managed to weaponise a pandemic-capable virus: the Soviet program.
As Russian troops launched their full-scale assault on Ukraine, however, no biological attack materialised. Not even when Russian units reached the outskirts of Kyiv were any biological weapons unleashed upon them. If there were ever a time for Ukrainian defenders to use bioweapons, surely it would have been just when Ukraine’s existence as an independent nation hung in the balance. Yet no biological attack came.
Of all the offensive biological weapons (BW) programs that are known to have existed, only one has managed to weaponise a pandemic-capable virus: the Soviet program, which was established in 1928. Other BW programs, such as that operated by the United States between the Second World War and 1969, mostly focused on bacteria and toxins that were more limited in their transmission, and less likely to cause an epidemic of disease that might circle back on their own personnel. Platforms such as weaponised anthrax and tularemia were considered for use at either the tactical or operational levels – on the battlefield, or for targeting key logistical bases behind enemy lines. The Soviet program, meanwhile, envisioned use of biological weapons at the strategic level, against civilian population centres. For that, variola virus - the causative agent of smallpox - was deemed the most promising agent.
While most biological weapons programs focused on bacteria and toxins, some were envisioned for use at the strategic level, against civilian population centres (Adrian Lange/Unsplash)
The first Soviet smallpox weapon was developed in the 1960s, and was found to be effective in humans by sheer accident. In 1971, a crew member of a research ship, the Lev Berg, became infected with smallpox as her vessel passed Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea, where Soviet bioweaponeers were conducting field tests. Outdoor bioweapons testing was being conducted on animals brought there, to ascertain the effects of wind, inversion layer and other environmental pressures on pathogens disseminated via bomblets and spray devices. While the Lev Berg crew member survived, at least nine other people were infected, some of whom developed the haemorrhagic form of smallpox. Three of them, including two children, died.
As Raymond Zilinskas and Milton Leitenberg recount in their seminal 2012 work on the Soviet program, when the bioweaponeers on Vozrozhdeniya Island realised what had happened, they contacted the Ministry of Defence and the KGB.
“Don’t say another word about this,” the weaponeers were told. A speedy response by public health workers prevented a larger outbreak. While the weaponeers were alarmed by what had happened, they were happy to see that the pathogen had survived dissemination via explosives, and was still able to cause human infection. This meant that their smallpox weapon had been “validated”, albeit by accident.
Today, there are only two official repositories at which variola virus is retained: at a CDC facility in Atlanta, and at Russia’s high containment laboratory in western Siberia, known as Vector. This is where the second iteration of the Soviet smallpox weapon was produced at scale in the 1980s. Zilinskas and Leitenberg reported that enough weaponised virus was produced at Vector to infect the global population many times over.
At the end of the Cold War, international arms inspectors were allowed to visit some of the Soviet facilities. There they found laboratories established for the weaponisation (of among other things), smallpox, plague and anthrax.
The first smallpox weapon, however, was constructed at a site previously called the Zagorsk Institute, which is today known as Sergiev Posad-6. There, a large, multi-disciplinary team worked for years on a variola isolate called India-1967. Much effort was committed to taking the pathogen through the complex processes of characterisation, scaling up, formulation, weaponisation and repeated testing. Contrary to popular belief, such enterprises are no small feat. The Soviet biological weapons program consisted of at least 60,000 highly skilled personnel, dozens of research sites, and multiple lines of effort for targeting humans, animals and plants with a range of toxins, rickettsia, bacteria and viruses. In addition to smallpox, Sergiev Posad-6 attempted to weaponise Q-fever, as well as Marburg virus, a close cousin of Ebola.
At the end of the Cold War, international arms inspectors were allowed to visit some of the Soviet facilities. There they found laboratories established for the weaponisation (of among other things), smallpox, plague and anthrax - the latter of which killed at least 68 people in 1979 after an accident at a bioweapons plant in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk. Sergiev Posad-6, however, remained off-limits to the inspectors, as did two other sites overseen by the Ministry of Defence.
One may wonder what precisely happened at those three facilities in the years that followed. While it is hard to know definitively, recent revelations give us some idea. Commercial satellite imagery has shown extensive renovations are currently being undertaken at Sergiev Posad-6.
In October, the Washington Post reported that ten new buildings are under construction there, “totalling more than 250,000 square feet, with several of them bearing hallmarks of biological labs designed to handle extremely dangerous pathogens”. The expansion at Sergiev Posad-6 apparently began in the months after Russia’s futile attempt to capture Kyiv, when the much-touted Ukrainian biological weapons attack failed to materialise. Precisely what the objective of the expanded construction is, remains unclear.
Speaking at the 2024 Valdai Conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a “reset” of relations with the United States following the November election. Members of the incoming US administration seem amenable to such a proposal. Hopefully, part of any rapprochement will involve serious discussions on arms control, and the reduction of strategic weapons stockpiles.
While much attention has been paid to nuclear arms, Washington and Moscow must also address biological weapons, which both nations claimed to renounce many years ago. The fate of such programs is not only a matter for Russia and the United States, but for global health security at large.
About the authors
David Heslop
Dr.
Joel Keep
Joel Keep is a 2024 Biodefense Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks.
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