The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme: Ploughshares to Swords [1st ed. 2021] 3030738426, 9783030738426

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The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme Ploughshares to Swords Anthony Rimmington

The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme

Anthony Rimmington

The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme Ploughshares to Swords

Anthony Rimmington Birmingham, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-73842-6    ISBN 978-3-030-73843-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

A great debt of gratitude is owed by the author to the men and women employed within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s secret biological warfare network. In the transformed reality which resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union, many came to realise that they were no longer bound by their bonds of loyalty and allegiance to a system which had imploded and disappeared, never to return. Chief among those who wrestled with their conscience, and the highest-level and most important source for the present work, is the now-deceased Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich Khanduev. This impressive individual was representative of some of the more positive aspects of the Soviet system, especially that associated with social mobility. Khanduev was born on 17 August 1918 in Buryatia, the son of a cattle breeder. From these humble origins his career followed an astonishing trajectory, with him eventually serving as a colonel in the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-Research Sanitary Institute (67-i km settlement, Sergiev Posad)—the Soviet Union’s lead virology BW centre—then being transferred to a major anti-livestock institute in Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, before finishing his career as an Academician within the National Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan. Khanduev spent many long, highly emotional hours, considering whether, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, his oath of loyalty prevented him from telling the extraordinary story of the agricultural biowarfare programme pursued by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. It is thanks to his courageous decision to write his memoirs that we are provided with a fascinating insight and knowledge of this highly secretive Soviet endeavour. v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Another individual who made a significant contribution to this project is Stephen Mylrea Asbridge (1952–2015). Lacking any formal scientific background, he had a most detailed knowledge of fermentation technology, working for many decades in this branch of the UK’s bioindustry. His main contribution to this work, however, centres on the wide network of contacts he had developed within the life sciences industry in the former Soviet Union. He was greatly loved and respected by an array of senior researchers and directors based in Moscow and many other cities across the USSR. In the chaos and disorder following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was only through these highly personal channels of communication that it was possible to schedule interviews and for former weapons scientists to be able to talk openly about their work. Two other key individuals should be thanked for their critical contribution to the present work: Dr David Stead and Dr Robert Bolton, both formerly attached to the Central Science Laboratory (York) were fine travelling companions on several adventures across the post-Soviet space. Their expert knowledge provided fascinating insight into the programmes which had been pursued by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. In addition, David’s fine singing voice was capable of transforming an ordinary social occasion into an extraordinary one. Alex Donaldson and Richard Strange very kindly read and commented on the manuscript as it was being finally prepared. Their contributions have greatly improved the quality of the book. Grateful thanks are also extended to the anonymous reviewer for Palgrave Macmillan. Finally, a special and very personal thank you is also offered to Dr Edward Arfon Rees (1949–2019), late of the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Birmingham. He was a most brilliant historian of the Soviet Union, as is evidenced by an array of superlative publications, who provided myself and very many others, with a deep insight into this fascinating period of history. He shall be most remembered by me as a very dear colleague whose enthusiasm, infectious humour and love of life brightened up many a dull day in the Russian Centre at Birmingham.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Origins: The International Race to Develop Anti-crop and Anti-livestock Biological Weapons 13 The Initial Soviet Post-War Anti-crop Biological Warfare Programme  22 The Trigger: The US Offensive Biological Warfare Programme Targeting the Soviet Union  24 3 Codename Ekologiya: Khrushchev and the Launch of the Soviet Union’s Large-­Scale Agricultural Biowarfare Programme 33 The Generals in Charge: Military Oversight of the Ekologiya Programme  36 First Steps: Pursuit of the Ekologiya Programme at the Palace on the Znamenskoe-Sadki Estate  40 The Concentration of Veterinary BW Facilities in the Vladimir Region  52 The Gvardeiskii Experimental Proving Ground: Biological Warfare on the Kazakh Steppe  55 An Invisible Network: Visiting Western Plant Pathology and Veterinary Specialists Are Unaware of the Existence of the New Agricultural BW Facilities  60

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Numbers Employed in the Ministry of Agriculture’s BW Programme  62 The Targeting of China by the Ekologiya Programme?  63 4 From Estonia to Sakhalin Island: The Expansion of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Toxic Archipelago in the 1970s and 1980s 79 The Interdepartmental Council and the New Focus on Molecular Biology  79 The Development of Linkages to the USSR Ministry of Defence, Biopreparat and Other Branches of the Soviet BW Programme  82 The Expansion of the Ekologiya Programme and the Opening of New Facilities in Estonia, Armenia and Tajikistan  84 Harnessing Virulent Plant Pathogens from the Soviet Network of Monitoring Stations and Plant Breeding Facilities  91 Africa as a Source of Novel Pathogens? The International Dimensions of the Ekologiya Programme  92 The Emergence of the New Scientific Leadership of the Soviet Anti-crop BW Programme  94 The Maintenance of a Strict Regime of Secrecy Within the GUNIiEPU Network: Security Measures in Place at Ekologiya Facilities in Uzbekistan and Georgia  96 The Launch of the Flora Programme and the Development of Tactical Herbicides for the Military 100 Alibek’s Account of the Early Termination of GUNIiEPU’s BW Programme 101 5 Heart of Darkness: The Creation of Reserve Mobilisation Capacity for Production of Viral Agents109 The Soviet System of Mobilisation Preparedness 109 The Creation of Reserve Mobilisation Production Facilities for Anti-agricultural Agents 110 BW Mobilisation Capacity at the Pokrov Biologics Plant 112 Identification of Mobilisation Capacity at Pokrov by Western Visitors 115 The Nature of Activity at Pokrov: Linkages to an Alleged Soviet Variola Virus Programme 117 Delivery Systems for Weaponised Agricultural BW Agents 119

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6 Through a Glass Darkly: Analysis of the Soviet Union’s Military Agricultural R&D Programmes125 Western Intelligence Assessments of the Soviet Agricultural Biowarfare Programme 125 Central Asia’s “Sverdlovsk Incident”? The Rinderpest (Cattle Plague) Programme and the First Major Disease Outbreak from an Ekologiya Laboratory 127 The Pursuit of FMD Research Programmes by VNIYaI 133 Construction of FMD Vaccine Facilities by the Soviet Union 134 VNIIVViM’s Focus on Anthrax 136 R&D Programmes in Vol’ginskii and Gvardeiskii Focused on African Swine Fever (ASF) and African Horse Sickness (AHS) 138 Sheeppox, Goatpox and Fowlpox Viruses 139 R&D Programmes Conducted by Soviet Anti-crop BW Facilities: Rice Blast (Magnaporthe grisea) and Rice Bacteriosis (Xanthomonas oryzae) 140 Late Blight of Potatoes (Phytophthora infestans) 141 Diseases of Cereal Crops 144 The Use of Insects to Transmit Plant Pathogens 145 Offence or Defence? The Conflicting Narratives with Regard to the Ekologiya Programme 146 7 From Military to Agro-industrial Complex: The Legacy of the Agricultural BW Programme in the Post-Soviet States155 The Collapse of the USSR and the Evacuation of Weapons Scientists to the Russian Federation 155 The Transfer to Civil Control of Russia’s Anti-crop and Anti-­ livestock Facilities 157 Iran and the Proliferation Threat Arising in the Wake of the Collapse of the Soviet Union 160 From Isolated Cold War Outpost to National Lead-­Edge Plant Pathology Research Centre: The “Rediscovery” of Georgia’s Soviet-Era Time Capsule 166 The Role of Kobuleti in Soviet Military Programmes 170 The UK Ministry of Defence Counters the Critical Proliferation Threat in Kobuleti: The Launch of the Pilot Biological Redirection Project 174

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The Yerevan Branch of VNIYaI Emerges as the Main Research Hub of the Armenian Veterinary Sector 177 The Fate of Kazakhstan’s Agricultural Biowarfare Facilities 178 The Use of Former Soviet Weapons Scientists in the War Against Drugs 182 8 Conclusion199 Characteristics of the Ekologiya BW Programme 199 Soviet Rationale for the Launch of the Ekologiya Programme 201 The Achievements of the Soviet Agricultural BW Programme 204 Ekologiya’s Legacy 205 Appendix A: Soviet/Russian Abbreviations and Acronyms209  Appendix B: Composition of the Scientific and Technical Council (NTS) and Interbranch Scientific and Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS)215 Appendix C: Lead Scientists in the Ekologiya Programme217 Index225

About the Author

Anthony Rimmington  is a former senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES), UK. He was the winner, as a postgraduate student at this institution, of the John Grayson Memorial Prize. He has written widely on the civil life sciences industry in Russia and the former Soviet Republics and is the author of Technology and Transition: A Survey of Biotechnology in Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic States (London and Westport, Connecticut, 1992). Other publications on this topic include Tekhnologiya i perekhodnyi period. Obzor biotekhnologii v Rossii, na Ukraine i v stranakh baltii, in Biotekhnologiya, ekologiya, meditsina: Materialy III–IV Mezhdunarodnykh nauchnykh seminarov 2001–2002, Volga-Vyatka Centre of Applied Microbiology, Kirov, 2002, pp.  75–8; Biotechnology Legislation in Central and Eastern Europe, European Federation of Biotechnology Task Group on Public Perceptions of Biotechnology’s Briefing Paper No. 9, June 1999, pp. 4; “Biotechnology and industrial microbiology regulations in Russia and the former Soviet republics”, in Hambleton, P., Melling, J., Salusbury, T.T. (Eds.), Biosafety in Industrial Biotechnology, London, 1994, pp.  67–89; “Perestroika and Soviet biotechnology”, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1990, pp.  63–79; “Soviet biotechnology: the case of single cell protein”, in Amann, R.,

The Lord will strike your grazing herds, your horses and asses, your camels, cattle and sheep with a terrible pestilence (Exodus, 9:3). I destroyed your crops with blight and disease (Amos, 4:9) xi

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Cooper, J.(Eds.), Technical Progress and Soviet Economic Development, Oxford, 1986, pp. 75–93; and “Issues in Soviet biotechnology: the case of single-cell protein”, in Adaptability to New Technologies of the USSR and East European Countries, Brussels, 17–19 April 1985, pp. 217–234. Numerous contributions regarding the Soviet and Russian civil life sciences industry have also been made to a number of popular scientific publications including New Scientist, Bio/Technology, International Industrial Biotechnology, The Genetic Engineer and Biotechnologist, European Microbiology and Microbiology Europe. Rimmington has also written extensively on the Soviet Union’s offensive biological weapons programme including Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare (London and New York, 2018). He has completed a series of journal articles and book chapters on the subject including “From Offence to Defence? Russia’s Reform of its Biological Weapons Complex and the Implications for Western Security”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2003, pp. 1–43; “The Soviet Union’s Offensive Programme: The Implications for Contemporary Arms Control”, in Wright, S, (Ed.), Biological Warfare and Disarmament: New Problems/New Perspectives, Lanham, 2002, pp.  103–50; “Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Soviet Union’s BW Programme and Its Implications for Contemporary Arms Control”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, September 2000, pp. 1–46; “Konversion Sowjetischer BW-produktions-einrichtungen: Der fall Biomedpreparat, Stepnogorsk, Kasachstan”, in Buder, E. (Ed.), Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Konversion von B-Waffen-Einrichtungen, Lit Verlag, Münster, 2000, pp. 245–262; “Fragmentation and Proliferation? The Fate of the Soviet Union’s Offensive Biological Weapons Programme”, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 20, No. 1, April 1999, pp. 86–110; “Conversion of BW Facilities in Kazakhstan”, in Geissler, E., Gazsó, L., Buder, E. (Eds.), Conversion of Former BTW Facilities, NATO Science Series, London, 1998, pp. 167–186; and “From military to industrial complex? The conversion of biological weapons' facilities in the Russian Federation”, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 17, No. 1, April 1996, pp. 80–112. During the very last years of existence of the Soviet Union, Rimmington travelled to a number of research establishments at sites located across the country. Following upon the collapse of the USSR, he was allowed access to a number of former Soviet life sciences R&D institutes and manufacturing facilities with a view to assisting with their participation in international non-proliferation programmes.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

View of Narkomzem Building in Moscow, 15:36:01, 3 September 2017, Moscow, Russian Federation. Photographer: Ludvig14 (Wikimedia Commons, https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/ File: Moscow_Narkomzem_1234.jpg, Accessed on the 26 February 2020) 14 View of All-Russian Institute of Plant Protection, 20:30:00, 22 March 2012. Photographer: Grichanov (Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ 6/6e/ VIZRbuilding1.jpg, Accessed on the 28 May 2019) 23 Palace on the Znamenskoye-Sadki Estate, Bitsa, Moscow oblast’, 18:15:52, 30 July 2007. Photographer: Maslova, Lyudmila, Moscow (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license; This image was uploaded as part of European Science Photo Competition 2015, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/e/ed/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0 %B2%D0%B0._%D0%94%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B5% D1%86_%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%8C%D0%B1 %D1%8B_%D0%97%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0% BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B5-­ %D0%A1%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8.jpg)41 View of main building, Georgian Branch of the All-Union Scientific-­Research Institute of Phytopathology, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 47

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Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6

Fig. 3.7 Fig. 3.8

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4

View of water tower erected in 1959, Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 11 December 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington48 View of hazard sign “Radioactivity” at entrance to SANIIF site for testing uptake of radionucleotides in crops, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 19 May 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington50 View of All‑Union Scientific‑Research Foot‑and‑Mouth Disease Institute (VNIYaI), Yur’evets, Vladimir oblast’. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 53 View of Soviet-era placards on display at the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute—one depicting NISKhI, with stylized images of a horse and a leaf symbolizing the twin activities of animal and plant science, another placard celebrating the Achievements of Science for Field and Farm, a slogan popularized by Academician Pavel Pavlovich Lobanov, President of the V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Sciences (1956–1961 and 1965–1978), Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Zhambul’ oblast’, Kazakhstan, 8 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 57 View of greenhouse facility on site at Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Zhambul’ oblast’, Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 58 View of a centrifugal freeze dryer manufactured by Edwards High Vacuum Ltd. (Crawley, UK)—part of the historical large-scale installation of the latest Western equipment at NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 59 View of dedicated storage area housing 15,000 wheat varieties, Laboratory of Plant Immunity, Scientific-Research Institute of Agriculture, Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 85 View of road sign for Kamara, location of former Experimental Station, Estonia, 3 July 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington86 View of block of flats constructed for Experimental Station, Kamara, Estonia, 3 July 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington87 Elaborate security system preventing unauthorised access to offices and laboratories at Georgian Branch of VNIIF, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 98

  List of Figures 

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 7.3

Fig. 7.4 Fig. 7.5

Fig. 7.6 Fig. 7.7

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View of bunkered facilities at Pokrov biologics factory, Vol’ginskii, Vladimir oblast’, Russian Federation. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 115 Rinderpest outbreak in South Africa, 1896. Photographer: Unknown, public domain, created on the 17 February 2011, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Rinderpest_1896-CN.jpg#/media/ File:Rinderpest 1896-CN.jpg127 View of containment system employed within Georgian Branch of VNIIF’s greenhouse, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect) 143 View of entrance to All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Animal Health (VNIIZZh), Yur’evets, Russian Federation, 1994. Photographer: Alex Donaldson (used with author’s permission)158 View of concentric rings of security walls in place at anti-crop BW facility, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)168 View of nameplate of the renamed Plant Immunity Research Institute, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)169 View of greenhouse complex, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 170 Georgette Naskidashvili, Director of Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)172 View of Soviet-era bioreactors at NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington179 View of Soviet-era phytotrons at the Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 11 December 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 184

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In August 1958, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the USSR Council of Ministers, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, issued decree No. 909-426 “for strengthening work in the field of microbiology and virology” and embarked upon the largest agricultural biowarfare programme the world has ever seen.1 Embracing defensive and offensive components, six institutes were initially created and placed under the control of a secret department, the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-Production Establishments (GUNIiEPU) within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. The secret programme operated under the codename Ekologiya (Ecology), which was also referred to as Problem “E”. For more than three decades the new Soviet BW facilities were to focus their research on a range of pathogens with utility as anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons. By the time the programme had terminated in 1991, the network, with its store of highly dangerous pathogens, had the capability to inflict enormous damage on Western agriculture. An array of Western scholars and journalists and high-level Soviet defectors have alluded to the secret Soviet agricultural network, which, at its height, embraced around 10,000 personnel, equating to a quarter to a sixth of all those who were employed within the USSR’s vast BW programme. This agricultural biowarfare workforce eclipses the numbers employed in historic BW programmes pursued by other countries. It © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_1

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exceeds that of the entire US BW programme, fewer than 8000 people; the Japanese BW programme, which employed fewer than 5000; and the British and Canadian BW programme, employing fewer than 3000 personnel. The Soviet weapons scientists worked within a network which consisted of 15 anti-crop facilities, 4 anti-livestock facilities, 1 institute embracing both animal and plant BW programmes and at least 3 dedicated proving grounds, alongside an unknown number of reserve mobilisation BW production units. The agricultural BW technology developed by the Soviet Union would make tempting targets for nations wishing to acquire their own such capability or for terrorist groups seeking to inflict damage on Western agricultural targets. As Colonel Robert Kadlec has indicated, the consequences of such a strike could be catastrophic: “Agroterror offers an adversary the means to wage a potentially subtle yet devastating form of warfare, one which would impact on the political, social and economic sectors of society and potentially threaten national survival itself”.2 Two key factors exacerbate the problem of countering the use of such agents. The first concerns the relative ease with which agricultural pathogens can be weaponised and disseminated. Work on such agents may also require far lower levels of biosafety than that required for mainstream BW programmes aimed at human targets. And the second concerns the plausible deniability with regard to accusations that a nation or terrorist group had employed such weapons. Against a background of a dramatic increase in natural outbreaks of novel plant diseases over the past decade for example, a food crop epidemic initiated by a BW attack might never be detected, freeing the covert aggressor from blame and repercussion.3 There is also a reduced moral and ethical burden associated with the use of such agents.4 In addition, the geographical distribution of Soviet-era agricultural BW facilities is a matter of some concern with respect to the possible proliferation of agriculturally directed biological weapons. For the network was dispersed across a vast geographic area encompassing sites in Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This greatly complicated the task of Western agencies seeking to prevent the proliferation of weapons technologies associated with the Soviet programme. A number of recent reports have highlighted the vulnerability of Western agriculture to attack by a variety of pathogens and causative agents. The high health status of agricultural crops, combined with the extensive use of monoculture in modern agriculture across vast areas, means that plants present a particularly vulnerable target. A National

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Academy of Sciences study, “Genetic Vulnerability of Major Crops” published in August 1972, warned that US crops were “impressively uniform genetically and impressively vulnerable”.5 Once infection has developed, it is often too late in the growing season to plough it in and plant a resistant alternative.6 The livestock sector in the West has also become more vulnerable to attack, experiencing both a decrease in genetic diversity and a significant concentration of production (in 1970, e.g., there were about 500,000 dairy farms in the United States, with this number decreasing to 160,000 by 1988).7 As one US expert noted, “for the user of biological agents, the trend to concentration has reduced the target’s geographic area, increased the potential for spread of infectious agents, and magnified the impact of limited use”.8 Attacks on agricultural crops and livestock with BW agents could lead to potential economic losses of immense proportions. In the nineteenth century, coffee leaf rust caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix destroyed coffee plantations worth millions of dollars in South-East Asia and for the past two decades has been a pressing problem in Latin America. In 1970 in the United States, Southern corn leaf blight (SCLB), caused by the fungus Bipolaris maydis, devastated 15 per cent of the maize crop, reducing the average national corn yield from 83.9 to 71.7 bushels per acre and costing farmers about US$1 billion in losses.9 More recently in 1996 a limited outbreak of Karnal bunt (Tilletia indica)—a fungal pathogen of wheat— in the American Southwest led to an estimated US$250 million in loss. In this case although the actual extent of the infections was limited, other countries enacted trade embargoes in order to prevent imports of infected wheat.10 A January 2001 report produced by the US Department of Defence estimates that an attack utilising Asian soybean rust (caused by the fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi) could potentially result in American losses for farmers, processors, livestock producers and consumers of up to US$8 billion per annum.11 The deliberate deployment of anti-crop agents could also be highly effective in causing mass casualties in civilian populations. During the period 1845–1846, for example, late blight of potatoes, caused by the fungus-like microorganism, Phytophthora infestans, was one of the primary causes of the Irish famine which resulted in the deaths of about one million people and forced another one million to emigrate. Again in 1942–1943 the brown spot disease of rice was partially responsible for the Bengal famine in India in which more than two million people starved.12

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Potential economic losses associated with attacks on a country’s livestock sector could be just as severe. In 1997 in Taiwan, for example, an outbreak in pigs of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is estimated to have probably cost tens of thousands of US dollars in direct losses. However, the costs of eradication and disinfection amounted to US$4 billion, alongside a cumulative US$15 billion in lost export revenues.13 The FMD outbreak in the UK in 2001, meanwhile, led to losses to agriculture and the food chain amounting to about £3.1 billion. In addition, businesses directly affected by a loss of revenue as a result of reduced numbers of tourists visiting the countryside are estimated to have lost a similar total amount of between £2.7 and £3.2 billion.14 It is evident from the above descriptions that the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s anti-crop and anti-livestock BW programme and its subsequent unravelling was a matter of great importance to Western governments. The BW technologies and strains of pathogens developed by the Soviet Union made tempting targets for nation states or terrorist groups wishing to acquire an anti-crop or anti-livestock capability. The acquisition of production technologies and highly pathogenic agents from former Ekologiya facilities might have offered one of the least complicated and risk-free routes with which to attack Western targets. Evidence is presented that Western nations, especially the US and UK, acted effectively to stem the flow of these pathogens and technologies to states wishing to enhance their own biological weapons capabilities. Their intervention provided a financial lifeline to former Soviet agricultural BW facilities and personnel in the wake of a suspension of orders from the military and massive reductions in funding for research and operating budgets. It is also apparent that, during a period of improved international relations with the West, Russian and post-Soviet  institutions, formerly engaged in the Ekologiya programme, were active collaborators with an array of Western agencies seeking to sponsor projects intended to benefit both agriculture and wider civil society. Until the publication of this present study, our knowledge and understanding of the Ekologiya programme has rather resembled the nature of that concerning the case of dark matter. For until now, this globally significant project has remained impervious to any penetrative investigation. All the leading academic authorities are agreed upon the fact of its existence and its huge scale but, thus far, there has been no adequate description and analysis of its aims and objectives or its constituent parts in any detail at all. This situation is alluded to by Leitenberg and Zilinskas, who, in

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their magisterial account of the Soviet BW programme, state that “due to the lack of adequate information, we decided not to address … the Soviet programme headed by MOA (USSR Ministry of Agriculture) to produce biological weapons against animals and plants”.15 The present study seeks to address this critical gap in the scientific and military history of the Soviet Union and to fully assess its significance with regard to the global development of biological weapons. One of the most severe obstacles to gaining an understanding of the secret programme is the fact that following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the former agricultural BW facilities are now subordinate to a multiplicity of agencies in many different newly independent countries. In addition, several military agricultural facilities have now been amalgamated with civil R&D institutes which further prevent any reliable analysis of the original military-focused GUNIiEPU network. Another fundamental block to gaining an understanding of the Ekologiya programme is the continuing secrecy surrounding historical Soviet BW activities. For analysts seeking information on national BW programmes, both here in the UK and in the US, numerous documents have been made available in the respective national archives, accounts written by the lead scientists themselves, and a voluminous secondary literature has been published. Meanwhile, no corresponding access for Western researchers has been provided to primary materials relating to the USSR’s military biological programmes. Moreover, there has been a continuing attempt at disinformation, with the repeated appearance of publications arguing the case that the Soviet Union’s BW programmes were of a defensive nature. The absence of any substantive written account of the programme combined with the lack of access to secret archives means that in order to generate a historical narrative, this study relies upon a forensic reconstruction. Rather like the pieces of a jigsaw scattered across a board the size of the USSR, the author has gathered together as many critical pieces of historical evidence as could be mustered. As is inevitable, in the complete absence of official accounts regarding Ekologiya, there is still much that remains subject to conjecture and educated guesswork. To address this gap in knowledge, multiple interviews were undertaken with senior scientists over a period of more than a decade, at facilities located at sites separated across huge distances. As a result, a recognisable shape and design of the programme has been compiled from the dispersed fragments and many of the key personalities and secret locations have emerged from the shadows.

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The author draws heavily upon some 64 interviews conducted during the period 1995 through to 2004 with leading scientists formerly employed within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW network. The bulk of these interviews were conducted in the newly independent states which had previously accommodated components of the Ekologiya programme, including Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Also, four interviews were conducted in the United Kingdom. In addition, visits to Ekologiya R&D and production facilities in the Russian Federation were undertaken, including the author’s participation in an international symposium on the control of zoonotic diseases. This latter event took place at the Pokrov biologics factory in December 1995. Seminars conducted in Frankfurt, Germany, in March 1993; in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in October 1996; and in Tbilisi, Georgia, in October 2000 also afforded opportunities to converse with lead figures who had been previously engaged in research for the agricultural BW programme. Some of the interviews took place over a considerable span of time, with the author returning to an institute after a period of a year or two and asking a series of follow-up questions. In some cases, a period of a few days was spent at a specific institute, which meant that questions concerning Ekologiya could be pursued both during formal sessions and then subsequently in a more convivial atmosphere, over lunch or dinner breaks, or during sightseeing excursions. In other cases, the interviews may only have taken 20 minutes or so and were conducted during the course of a working visit. Most of these interviews were conducted in the decade or so immediately following upon the collapse of the Soviet Union when there was a strong sense of newly found freedoms in the air and the reach of state security apparatuses had, at least temporarily, been greatly diminished. Despite this, many former weapons scientists continued to fear the consequences if they were to reveal anything of substance about their previous activities. A few of the individuals interviewed did, however, feel able to freely discuss events which had been initiated by a state which had no current existence and to which they no longer had any strong bonds of loyalty. Moreover, they were in most cases facing a massive diminution of their status in the post-Soviet landscape with a concomitant collapse in the living standards of themselves and their families. There was a sense among these former Ekologiya scientists that the Soviet system to which they had devoted their whole lives had betrayed them. The majority of these informants, unless deceased, have been anonymised in the text to protect both themselves and their wider families from any state-directed repercussions.

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With regard to sources other than the interviews, the author has also drawn on the memoirs of leading individuals concerned with the management of the Soviet BW programme, such as Igor’ Valerianovich Domaradskii, who included some information in his account on the agricultural programme. He has also consulted the work of Lev Aleksandrovich Fedorov, who was one of a handful of researchers to have been granted some limited access to historical archives relating to the Soviet BW programme. In addition, some useful historical information has been gleaned from the websites of the various institutes linked to the Ekologiya network. Two unpublished memoirs focused on Ekologiya were also consulted. As detailed in the acknowledgements, the most detailed of these was prepared by Colonel Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich Khanduev, now deceased, who spearheaded Ekologiya’s focus on viral pathogens. This book is in the main organised on a chronological basis. Chapter 1 traces early Soviet programmes focused on agricultural BW which were pursued by the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, the forerunner of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. The major activities and accomplishments are described in the period through to, during and shortly after the end of the Second World War. The acquisition of both German and Japanese expertise in anti-livestock BW and anti-crop BW is pointed to as pivotal in the development of Soviet post-war programmes in this area. It is argued that the creation of anti-crop and anti-livestock biological weapons by the US during the immediate post-war period may have acted as one of the key triggers for the launch of Ekologiya. The first phase of the Ekologiya BW programme focused on the use of classical microbiology methods for the selection of unmodified, highly virulent pathogens for potential wartime use against an enemy’s crops and livestock. Chapter 2 describes the launch of Ekologiya under the auspices of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture and its control by the Soviet military. Initially, there was an emphasis on virology and Mendelian genetics, two key areas where the USSR lagged behind the West. The BW facilities and proving grounds within this closed network were kept hidden from successive teams of veterinarians and plant pathologists visiting from the US and other Western countries. The secret programme appears to have been primarily directed against agriculture in both the US and its allies, and China. In the second phase of the Ekologiya programme, initiated in the early 1970s, there was a new focus on the employment of molecular biology at its research facilities. Chapter 3 describes the creation of a new Interdepartmental Scientific-Technical Council for Molecular Biology and

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Genetics (MNTS) which had a sharp focus on the development of genetically modified agents, with wholly new and unexpected properties. During this second phase the network was expanded with new facilities appearing at a number of locations including Sakhalin Island and Estonia. Despite the new emphasis on molecular biology, it must be stressed that there is absolutely no evidence that the network succeeded in genetically enhancing any potential BW agents in any way. A key feature of both the USSR’s mainstream and agricultural BW programmes was the maintenance of reserve mobilisation capacity in civil production plants. In its most extreme form, such capacity comprised fully outfitted, tested and ready to operate BW production plants, with weapon-­ filling lines. They were intended for use in the event of an outbreak of hostilities. Chapter 4 focuses on the well-documented mobilisation capacity maintained by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture at its Pokrov biologics plant. One UK weapons inspector is reported to have departed Pokrov with the feeling that this was “the most sinister facility” he had visited in Russia. Chapter 5 describes the scientific research undertaken within the Ekologiya network. A key feature of the Soviet mainstream BW programme was the occurrence of repeated lapses in safety which resulted in a number of serious incidents. The most notorious of these was the well-documented Sverdlovsk anthrax disaster which occurred on 2 April 1979. An anthrax aerosol was released from a local BW institute belonging to the USSR Ministry of Defence which resulted in the deaths of at least sixty-eight people in Sverdlovsk and to cases of animal anthrax in nearby villages to the south-east of the city. The Ekologiya programme was no exception and it too was responsible for a major outbreak of rinderpest in an area of Kazakhstan situated close to one of its BW proving grounds. The collapse of the USSR and the subsequent unravelling of the Ekologiya network posed enormous problems for US and UK agencies seeking to curtail the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Chapter 6 contends that owing to the intensive efforts of agencies in both the US and UK, there is no evidence that any BW technologies and/or pathogens were transferred from the former Soviet network to countries of proliferation concern. The concluding chapter attempts to summarise the key findings of this present study, focusing on the characteristics of the Ekologiya network and the Soviet rationale for the pursuit of an offensive agricultural BW capability, which was later to be continued in direct defiance of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). It also details the main achievements

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of the programme and its legacy. The work concludes with three appendices: Soviet/Russian Abbreviations and Acronyms; Composition of the Scientific and Technical Council (NTS) and Interbranch Scientific and Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS); and Lead Scientists in the Ekologiya Programme. Some might look upon this present work with extreme scepticism and view it as just another attempt to promote a condemnatory narrative of Soviet history. However, prior to rushing to such a hasty conclusion, it should be noted that this account does not seek to castigate those who were employed within the Ekologiya programme, and full acknowledgement is made that it was, at least in part, a response to offensive agricultural capabilities which had been previously developed in the West. It is the author’s contention that only with a true understanding of the Soviet scientific legacy, including its inordinately wasteful pursuit of a grandiose military agricultural BW programme, can Russia and the post-Soviet states seek to successfully pursue new, civil-oriented commercial projects and avoid the mistakes of the past. It is also clear and apparent that the vast bulk of the men and women who served in the secret network had no real knowledge of its aims and objectives and simply believed they were patriotically serving their Soviet motherland and defending their compatriots from oblivion. These individuals cannot be simply airbrushed from history and their fascinating story deserves to be told.

Notes 1. The secret decree No. 909-426 was issued on 7 August 1958. The text of the decree has never been released but it is referred to in the official scientific archive of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lev Aleksandrovich Fedorov, a leading Russian expert on the Soviet BW programme, cites the decree and it is also referenced in the official histories of several institutes which formerly formed part of the Soviet agricultural BW programme. See Nauchnyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi akademii sel’skokhozyaist­ vennykh nauk, http://isaran.ru/?=ru/fund&guid=C16E22C1-­CB84-­ 4BE5-­AEB0-­FBBB8DBF3A9A&ida=42, Accessed on the 17 November 2020; Fedorov, L., Khronika pamyatnykh dat “khimicheskoi” zhizni TsK KPSS, Posev, No. 1, 1999; Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na kurtom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(5), May 2013, p. 6, http:// rsn-­msk.ru/files/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 17 November 2020; and Otchet o rabote, prodelannoi v FGBU “federal’nyi tsentr

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okhrany zdorov’ya zhivotnykh (FGBU “VNIIZZh”) v oblasti veterinarnogo nadzora za 1 kvartal 2013 goda, https://arriah.ru/main/about/ report/, Accessed on the 17 November 2020. 2. Chalk, P., The US agricultural sector: a new target for terrorism?, Janes Intelligence Review, 9 February 2001. 3. Recent advances in nucleic acid sequencing may aid in the identification of potential perpetrators. Schaad, N.W., Shaw, J.J., Vidaver, A., Leach, J., Erlick, B.J., Crop Biosecurity, APSnet Plant Pathology On-Line, 15–31 October 1999, http://www.scisoc.org/feature/BioSecurity/Top.html. 4. Hugh-Jones, M.E., Agricultural Bioterrorism, p.  222  in High-Impact Terrorism: Proceedings of a Russian-American Workshop, National Research Council, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2002, https://doi.org/10.17226/10301, Accessed on the 3 February 2021. 5. Genetic Vulnerability of Major Crops, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1972, p. 1. 6. Strauss, H.  King, J., The hazards of defensive biological warfare programmes, in Wright, S. (Ed.), Preventing a Biological Arms Race, The MIT Press, London, 1990, pp. 120–132. Strauss, H., King, J., The fallacy of defensive biological weapon programmes, in Geissler, E. (Ed.), Biological and Toxin Weapons Today, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 66–73. 7. Hugh-Jones, M.E., Agricultural Bioterrorism, p. 223. 8. Deen, W.A., Trends in American Agriculture: Their Implications for Biological Warfare Against Crop and Animal Resources, p. 165 in Frazier, T.W., Richardson, D.C., Food and Agricultural Security: Guarding Against Natural Threats and Terrorist Attacks Affecting Health, National Food Supplies, and Agricultural Economics, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 894, 1999. 9. Some southern states lost more than 50 per cent of their corn crop. In all, more than 1.02 billion bushels of corn were lost in 1970. See Doyle, J., Altered Harvest: Agriculture, Genetics and the Fate of the World’s Food Supply, Viking Penguin, New York, 1985. 10. Casagrande, R., Biological terrorism targeted at agriculture: the threat to US national security, The Nonproliferation Review, Fall–Winter, 2000, pp. 92–105. 11. Proliferation: Threat and Response, Office of the Secretary of Defence, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., USA, January 2001, pp. 64–65. 12. Rogers, P., Whitby, S., Dando, M., Biological Warfare Against Crops, Scientific American, June 1999, p. 62. 13. Hugh-Jones, M.E., Agricultural Bioterrorism, p. 225.

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14. Thompson, D., Muriel, P., Russell, D., Osborne, P., Bromley, A., Rowland, M., Creigh-Tyte, S., Brown, C., Economic costs of the foot and mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001, Revue Scientifique et Technique Off. Int. Epiz., Vol. 21, No. 3, 2002, p. 675, https://doc.oie. int/dyn/portal/index.seam?page=alo&aloId=30156, Accessed on the 11 March 2020. 15. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme: A History, Harvard University Press, London, 2012, p. 9.

CHAPTER 2

Origins: The International Race to Develop Anti-crop and Anti-livestock Biological Weapons

There is evidence that in the period leading up to the Second World War, the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Narodnyi kommissariat zemledeliya—Narkomzem)—the forerunner of the Ministry of Agriculture— was closely linked to the Soviet offensive biological weapons programme (see Fig. 2.1). The lead agricultural BW facility at this time was the State Experimental Veterinary Institute (GIEV). It had its origins in 1898  in Imperial Russia with the creation in St. Petersburg of the Veterinary-­ Bacteriological Laboratory under the Veterinary Administration of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. On 10 October 1917, Russia’s Provisional Government issued a decree on the formation, based on the laboratory, of the Experimental Veterinary Institute in Petrograd. In 1918 the institute was evacuated to an estate in Kuz’minki in the Moscow suburbs.1 Prior to the October Revolution, the site had belonged to the Golitsyn family. In 1915 the main palace on the estate, built by the Swiss-­ born architect, Domenico Gilardi, had been devastated by a fire. On 14 March 1921 the new communist authorities renamed the facility as GIEV and placed it under the control of Narkomzem’s Central Veterinary Administration.2 In his description of the Soviet biological warfare programme, Fedorov suggests that some of the Soviet Union’s very first experiments focused on Bacillus anthracis (the causal agent of anthrax) were conducted in Kuz’minki in 1918.3

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_2

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Fig. 2.1  View of Narkomzem Building in Moscow, 15:36:01, 3 September 2017, Moscow, Russian Federation. Photographer: Ludvig14 (Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File: Moscow_ Narkomzem_1234.jpg, Accessed on the 26 February 2020)

While there is scant evidence available regarding GIEV’s involvement in work on anthrax, there is a substantive body of evidence available documenting the institute’s engagement in studies of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus. The first serious scientific research on FMD by Narkomzem had been initiated in 1926 at GIEV in Kuz’minki. Initially work was conducted within a group belonging to the Department of Tuberculosis. But subsequently a specialised laboratory was created which, together with other departments, began work on FMD under the leadership of Professor Sergei Nikolaevich Vyshelesskii.4 Researchers at the lab are reported to have published a number of scientific papers on FMD. In the summer of 1926, Vyshelesskii undertook research visits on behalf of Narkomzem’s Veterinary Administration to both Germany and Denmark. These may have been focused on interactions with FMD laboratories. By 1927 he had been appointed director of GIEV. Sometime around 1934,

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Vyshelesskii is reported to have been arrested by the OGPU secret police and imprisoned within a special prison laboratory, or sharashka, located in Suzdal’, where a number of leading Soviet microbiologists were arrested and held captive and forced to work on the development of offensive and defensive biological weapons.5 One group of experts located here are reported to have focused on anti-livestock BW agents.6 In June 1930, construction began of the Soviet Union’s first microbiology facility focused solely on FMD, the Scientific-Research Institute for the Study of FMD. The ceremonial opening of the new facility took place on 20 October 1932. Subordinate to the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) , the establishment, which was modelled on Germany’s Insel Riems State Research Institute (Staatliche Forschungsanstalt Insel Riems—see pp.  18–20), was located on  Gorodomlya Island, Lake Seliger (Kalinin oblast’). Professor Aleksandr Leont’evich Skomorokhov, who was appointed the facility’s first director in 1932, and other researchers at the new FMD Institute, had been transferred from the All-Union Scientific-Research Experimental Veterinary Institute (VIEV, the former GIEV).7 L.S. Ratner, a major in the Soviet military veterinary service, is reported to have served as Skomorokhov’s deputy director.8 In November 1931, Ratner wrote a short report on the new institute for the journal, Front nauki i tekhniki. He noted that it was fitted out with the very best Soviet and imported equipment and that its huge main building (occupying 25,000 square metres) incorporated both production facilities and research laboratories, a guinea pig nursery, biological wastewater treatment facilities, a museum, a library, a micro-photo laboratory, a cinema and a 100-seat lecture room.9 There was also living accommodation for employees together with a canteen, a bath house, a shop and a school.10 Work on FMD began immediately upon the opening of the institute. A local commentator noted that “the Soviet government has appropriated 2,200,000 roubles for the construction of the institute. … The institute received several tens of telegrams from eminent scientists of the West—Professor Albert  Calmette, Professor  Otto Waldmann, Professor Gins, Professor Aleksandre Besredka and others. Some of them wrote that they would have been glad to be present at the opening of the foot-and-­ mouth disease institute, but that the material conditions gave them no such opportunity.”11 However, long-term research programmes on FMD were terminated in 1934 when Institute No. V/2-1094, a branch of the Red Army’s BW facility, the Biotechnical Institute (Vlasikha, Moscow

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oblast’), appropriated the buildings, laboratories and equipment of the FMD institute on Gorodomlya Island.12 Narkomzem acted quickly to reorganise a new dedicated FMD facility. On 2 June 1938, Narkomzem’s Main Veterinary Administration issued decree No. 136 regarding the creation under VIEV of a new research laboratory for the study of FMD on the remote Lisii Island. The experimental base for the study of foot-and-mouth disease became operational in December 1938.13 The military facilities on nearby Gorodomlya Island are reported to have been used as a model for the construction of the laboratory. The facility was apparently created shortly after the authorities issued an official warning encouraging Soviet veterinary organisations to develop countermeasures against anti-livestock agents. Lisii Island is located on Vyshnevolotskoe reservoir, close to the town of Vyshny Volochek, located 119 kilometres north-west of Kalinin on the strategic Moscow to Leningrad railway. The island is reported to have been covered with pine forest and occupy an area encompassing some 236 hectares. US intelligence noted that its location near Vyshny Volochek did not provide the degree of seclusion ideal for offensive BW activities.14 Major Ratner was appointed the new director of the Lisii Island FMD laboratory and noted in 1938 that “The work of the laboratory on the indicated themes has begun, and the experiments on small laboratory animals have been arranged. … By its geographical location and negligible value in economic respect, the uninhabited Lisii Island is a most favourable place for carrying out experiments on Foot and Mouth Disease. … A land area measuring 9.85 hectares has been set aside for the construction of the experimental base for the study of foot and mouth disease. It is proposed to locate on this section three cattle yards consisting of 25 head of cattle each, an ice plant, a nursery for guinea pigs, living quarters, bath and other private facilities. … It is projected to construct a sanitary sewer and a laboratory in each cattle yard. Thus, it will be possible to conduct experiments simultaneously with three types of the virus of foot-and-­ mouth disease. … The total cost of the construction will be approximately 500,000 roubles. … The methodical commission of VIEV has approved, for study in the laboratory in 1938, two principal themes on the problem of specific prophylaxis of foot and mouth disease: a) search for the methods of active immunization against foot and mouth disease; b) further perfection of the methods of obtaining and using the serum of convalescents.”15

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Despite the existence of the Red Army BW facility on  Gorodomlya Island, a mere 65 miles from Vyshny Volochek, US analysts could find no evidence of any cooperative research between the Red Army personnel and those based on Lisii Island during the three-year period of their coexistence. They concluded that the programmes at the two sites were being deliberately compartmentalised by the Soviet authorities. This strict compartmentalisation was to become a strong feature of future Soviet agricultural biowarfare programmes. In 1956, US intelligence concluded that the VIEV branch on Lisii Island “had almost certainly been involved in both offensive and defensive anti-livestock BW research”.16 Its operations had apparently included the acquisition of foreign strains of the foot-andmouth disease virus and may have included studies on the experimental transmission of the infection in domestic animals. Such operations could potentially signal an early attempt to screen candidate agents, but they were also considered essential stages in the development of effective vaccines used in defensive BW.  US intelligence therefore concluded that “such effort can actually be construed as either offensive or defensive, depending upon the nature of ancillary information”.17 There is evidence that the Soviet military utilised the country’s expertise regarding the FMD virus to undertake an evaluation of its potential as a biological weapon. The early Soviet focus on this agent may well have been as a result of intelligence regarding substantive German capabilities with regard to this virus, especially at the Insel Riems State Research Institute (see pp. 18–20). Open-air tests were initially conducted in 1935 at the army’s chemical weapons proving ground at Shikhany, located some 15 kilometres from Vol’sk on the Volga River. Here, military scientists sought to develop reliable methods of disseminating the FMD virus in combat situations.18 Further tests using the FMD virus in the autumn of that year were conducted on a ten-square kilometre range on Gorodomlya Island (see p. 16).19 In the summer of 1937 the Red Army’s BW facility, the Biotechnical Institute, undertook tests involving the FMD virus at their remote proving ground on Vozrozhdenie Island.20 Two airplanes were made available for use in the experiments.21 The Soviet military programme of research on the FMD virus was suspended after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Presumably it was later reactivated and eventually assimilated within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Ekologiya programme (see Chap. 2). The launch by the Germans in October 1941 of Operation Typhoon focused on the capture of Moscow led to the evacuation of VIEV’s main

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facility in Kuz’minki and its subordinate FMD laboratory on Lisii Island. Both facilities were relocated to Omsk in Siberia where they were temporarily based at a local veterinary research institute. During the Second World War, the Luftwaffe is reported to have conducted aerial reconnaissance of Lisii Island. The aerial photography of the FMD laboratory revealed the facility to be “neither extensive nor impressive”.22 VIEV returned to Moscow from Siberia in 1943.23 A year later, the Lisii Island base was reactivated and experimentation involving foot-and-mouth disease was resumed under the leadership of Major Ratner.24 In the devastated post-war landscape both the Western allies and the Soviet Union sought to acquire German FMD experts who had been employed at the Insel Riems State Research Institute. This facility, one of the world’s oldest virus research institutes, had been founded by Friedrich Loeffler in 1910 on Riems Island in the Baltic, north of Greifswald, for the study and treatment of FMD. Loeffler was one of the founders of the science of virology and, together with Paul Frosch, had, in 1898, described the causative agent of FMD as a filterable, but corpuscular, replication-­ competent agent.25 During the war the institute had employed 99–140 personnel (including around 20 scientists) on a site occupying some 1000 square metres. The facility was headed by Professor Otto Waldmann and comprised laboratories, research stables, post-mortem rooms, workshops and living quarters. The intensive effort by both sides to capture the institute’s FMD scientists was a portent of the Cold War biological arms race which was to come. Geissler reports that in the early years of the Second World War the Insel Riems State Research Institute was not involved in any biological warfare activity.26 However, there is evidence that one of Germany’s main concerns regarding biological warfare focused on potential enemy use of FMD virus against its cattle. In 1940 a virulent strain of FMD to which German cattle were vulnerable, had been detected in the Balkans and Southern Russia. This prompted the Gas Protection Office of the Army Ordnance Office (Wa Prüf 9) to provide sufficient vaccine for prophylactic use. According to Geissler, retaliatory use of this strain was also contemplated by the Germans. A 1943 study by Eduard Richters discussed possible means of dissemination of FMD virus by aircraft over pasture land. Geissler argues that the seriousness with which FMD was regarded by the German authorities is evidenced by the fact that it was one of the very few biological agents which was studied for offensive purposes in open-air trials.

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The Insel Riems State Research Institute was also linked to the Blitzableiter Committee. This committee was created in 1943 on order of the Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) with the aim of coordinating German biological warfare activities. The committee was composed of experts drawn from relevant Army departments. The head of the committee’s Veterinary Section was Riem’s researcher Dr Hanns-­ Christoph Nagel who presumably kept his director, Professor Waldmann, informed of his activities. At the initial meeting of the Blitzableiter Committee, Nagel envisioned the use of FMD against the United Kingdom arguing that “this virus would be especially devastating since British cattle were poorly immunized. … Mass use may perhaps infect 6–12 per cent of the cattle.”27 Meanwhile, a declassified CIA report suggests that the US was also considered as a target. Nagel and his colleagues considered that an “enemy country could be attacked with FMD virus; the virus could be dried, flown over enemy country, and dropped”.28 This scheme was never practically applied because it required German air superiority. Geissler reports that the Riems facility supplied the FMD virus that during 1942 and/or 1943 was used in aerial spraying experiments that were conducted by Nagel and his associate, Dr Kurt Stantien (Army Ordnance Office), over an island in Lake Peipus. The latter is the fifth largest lake in Europe and is situated on the border between Russia and Estonia. There is conflicting testimony as to whether cattle or reindeer were the subject of the German experiments.29 Geissler also points to the use of a Testing Ground East (Versuchsfeld Ost) or Bacteria Field East (B-Feld Ost) at an unknown location, where it was also planned to conduct experiments with FMD virus.30 The CIA report that in Spring 1944 an SS officer travelled to Riems and requested large supplies of dried FMD virus which were to be disseminated in the Soviet Union in the wake of retreating German forces. However, the institute refused this request which was then taken to higher authorities in Berlin. The project was finally abandoned after the Riems institute successfully argued that the use of the agent would have the “boomerang” effect of spreading the disease from Soviet territory to Germany.31 On 2 May 1945, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky occupied Riems Island and immediately began to pilfer the institute. According to a top-secret CIA intelligence report, within a few days the Soviet authorities had restored order at the site which was placed under the personal protection of Stalin. Between July and October 1945, two Soviet commissions, one military

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and one civilian, began to totally dismantle the institute as part of war reparations. The military commission seized 10,000 guinea pigs, 3 ultracentrifuges, a range of chemical-physical apparatus, low-temperature refrigerators, special apparatus for the production of vaccines and sera, thermostats and water baths. All of this dismantled equipment was shipped to Riga and then transferred to the Soviet Military Veterinary Academy. Major Ratner (see p. 16), a leading Soviet FMD specialist, is reported to have played a major role in the military’s interaction with the German facility. Other Soviet military personnel visiting the facility included Professor Svizov, who was at the site in 1948. The Soviet civilian commission is then reported to have taken possession of anything not seized by the military, primarily equipment used for the production of vaccines and sera, and to have shipped this back to Riga.32 The Soviets are subsequently reported to have relocated the FMD facility to a site on the mainland opposite Riems Island. It was rebuilt and renamed as the Land Office II for Animal Epidemic Diseases and supplied with coal and technical equipment from the USSR.  By June 1948, the institute is estimated to have regained around half of its former capacity and was engaged in both R&D and production of vaccines. A number of scientists were restored to their employment at the facility including Professor Heinz Röhrer, the former head of its pathology department, and Dr Hubert Möhlmann, a former specialist in the production of FMD vaccines.33 During the immediate post-war period, Soviet specialists are reported to have become increasingly interested in the BW potential of the Riems facility. They are reported to have determined that the institute could produce sufficient dried FMD virus harvested from cattle tongue epithelial tissue to attack an enemy country using aerial dispersal. A Soviet Colonel, Lyssov, is reported to have visited the site and queried as to why the Germans had not employed the FMD virus as a weapon in retaliation for the indiscriminate bombing of German cities by US planes. Sometime around October 1945, the Soviets are also reported to have invited Professor Waldmann, who had fled to Argentina, and other specialists to work on FMD in the USSR.34 It is not known how many of the Riem scientists took up this offer. One key BW scientist who did fall into the hands of the Soviet Union was the virologist Dr Erich Traub, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, who since 1942 had been second in command at Riems. He was an expert in foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest and Newcastle disease. During the

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period 1932 through to 1938 he had served as a member of staff at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in Princeton, New Jersey. Involved in Nazi activities in the US, he was described by his former colleagues there, as being surly and having a violent temper. Prior to the war, he was provided with an opportunity to remain in the US, but choose to return to Germany where he served in the Wehrmacht Veterinary Corps. He was also a member of several Nazi organisations including the National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps or NSKK). Eventually Traub’s talents as a virologist were recognised and he was pulled-back from the front and assigned to biological weapons work. Traub is reported to have been linked to the offensive BW trials of FMD conducted by the Riems institute in the Soviet Union and to have travelled to Turkey to find a lethal strain of rinderpest virus for use against the allies.35 Apparently, he was considered the most talented scientist working on anti-animal biological weapons. At the end of the war he and his family fell into Soviet hands and he was quickly put back to work, allegedly on bioweapons related research.36 Traub rapidly became a high priority target for the British intelligence services. They wished both to deprive the Soviet Union of his BW knowledge and know-how and simultaneously to learn what was going on at the new Riems facility. In July 1948, the UK’s Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch (STIB) is reported to have evacuated Traub from the Soviet zone. He is reported to have brought with him some of the viruses and sera he had been working on for the Soviets.37 The acquisition of Traub was part of an aggressive operation codenamed Matchbox under which British intelligence sought to bring to the British Zone (BOZ), German scientists, engineers and technicians who might otherwise add significantly to Soviet military capability.38 Traub was probably influenced in his decision to flee westwards by Soviet actions such as Operation Osoaviakhim, under which thousands of German scientific workers and their families had been rounded-up and forcibly deported to the USSR in the dead of night.39 Just a year later Traub was transferred to the United States under the auspices of Operation Paperclip—another secret programme aimed at targeting German scientists for US government employment—where he was then for a number of years associated with the Naval Medical Research Institute (Bethesda, Maryland). The discovery of the secret German wartime offensive BW programme focused on FMD undoubtedly alerted the Soviet authorities as to the military potential of this disease and the devastating impact it could have on

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the country’s livestock sector if unleashed by an enemy. During the early to mid-1950s a great deal of momentum built-up in the Soviet Union with regard to the creation of the country’s own dedicated institute for the study of FMD. In 1953, at a meeting of the 39th Plenary Session of the Veterinary Section of the V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) , Skomorokhov, who had headed up the Soviet Union’s first foot-and-mouth disease institute on Gorodomlya Island, urged the creation of a specialised institute focusing on FMD. In 1957, a meeting of the Scientific Council of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture noted that FMD research had become dispersed among a number of veterinary research facilities based at sites in the RSFSR, Kazakh SSR, Kyrgyz SSR, Tajik SSR and Ukrainian SSR.40 It was against this background that, in 1958, the Soviet authorities created the All-Union Scientific-Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute (VNIYaI) which, within the secret Ekologiya network, was able to focus on both civil and military aspects of FMD virus R&D and production (see pp. 52–54). It is highly likely that the new facility incorporated technologies which had been seized by the Soviets from the Insel Riems State Research Institute.

The Initial Soviet Post-War Anti-crop Biological Warfare Programme Fedorov reports that the Soviet Union initiated work on anti-crop BW and CW in the immediate period after the Second World War. The focus is reported to have been on economically important targets in the United States. This early work was undertaken at R&D facilities belonging to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture which itself had been created in 1953, and was led and coordinated by the Pushkin All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Protection (VNIIZR) based in Pushkin, 24 km south of Leningrad (see Fig.  2.2). The institute’s subordinate branch facility in Central Asia is also alleged to have been engaged in such work.41 Certainly, VNIIZR at this time, under the leadership of Ivan Mikhailovich Polyakov, was a powerful research facility and embraced field stations, experimental farms and toxicological laboratories at sites across the USSR.42 However, Fedorov is unable to provide any additional information on the scope and nature of this nascent anti-crop BW programme. There is some corroboration of Fedorov from Alibek (previously known as Kanatzhan Baizakovich Alibekov), a high-level defector to the United States who was formerly

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Fig. 2.2  View of All-Russian Institute of Plant Protection, 20:30:00, 22 March 2012. Photographer: Grichanov (Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ 6/6e/VIZRbuilding1.jpg, Accessed on the 28 May 2019)

employed within the Soviet biological weapons system, but someone who might be expected to have fairly limited knowledge of agricultural BW programmes. The latter reports that “although the Soviet Union had been developing anti-personnel biological weapons since the late 1920s, it began to develop anti-agricultural biological weapons only in the late 1940s or early 1950s”. Alibek postulates that the Soviet Union may only have subsequently embarked upon its massive agricultural BW programme as a direct response to US efforts at this time aimed at the development of biological weapons against plants and animals.43 Western intelligence on Soviet capabilities at this time was extremely limited. An authoritative CIA report, compiled some years later in April 1961, identified VNIIZR as the Soviet Union’s most important plant protection institute, “having primary responsibility for the investigation of crop diseases, herbicides, and aerosols for agricultural employment”. It was, the report emphasised, the USSR’s main facility for the study of cereal rusts. The CIA also noted that research on environmental aspects of plant infection and disease spread was significant with regard to possible selection and evaluation of anti-crop agents.44 However, the CIA could provide no definitive evidence of any offensive anti-crop BW programmes having been undertaken by VNIIZR in the preceding decade.

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The Trigger: The US Offensive Biological Warfare Programme Targeting the Soviet Union Every major offensive BW programme to date has developed a variety of agents targeted against strategically and economically important food crops and livestock. In the case of anti-crop biological weapons, the first country to have initiated research on their development may have been France which during the late 1930s was focussing its efforts on late blight in potatoes. During the Second World War, Germany investigated a number of plant pathogens with a view to their utilisation as anti-crop agents including late blight of potatoes and leaf-infecting yellow and stem rusts of wheat, caused by Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici and Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici, respectively. Another Axis power which employed up to 100 workers in research on plant pathogens was Japan, which focused its efforts on diseases which could destroy crops in the Soviet Union and America. One of the most promising agents was considered to be wheat smut, a disease caused by fungal species of the genus Tilletia. Wheat smuts are endemic in many areas of the world and can in favourable conditions result in massive reductions in crop yields. In addition, the Japanese built a facility able to annually generate more than 90 kilogrammes of cereal rust spores which, if employed, could have wreaked havoc on American prairies.45 A key intelligence report issued in 1951 was to greatly influence US policy with regard to biological weapons in the post-war period. On 10 January 1951, the Central Intelligence Agency released its National Intelligence Estimate (NIE-18) on The Probability of Soviet Employment of BW and CW (chemical warfare) in the Event of Attacks Upon the US. This report, which reached the highest echelons of US government officials stated that “it is highly probable that the Soviets are carrying an extensive programme to develop BW agents and equipment, and they appear to have given some attention to the possible use of BW agents for sabotage activities. … At present, the Soviets are capable of producing a variety of agents in sufficient quantities for sabotage or small-scale employment. By 1952 at the latest, the Soviets probably will be capable of mass production of BW agents for large-scale employment.”46 The report noted that sabotage attacks with BW agents might form “part of an overall plan to deter the military effectiveness of the US. This includes attacks against crops and livestock over a relatively long period of time with the objective of producing significant economic losses.”47

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NIE-18 speculated further as to the nature of Soviet attacks on animals and plants noting that “BW attack on animals would be directed primarily at the food supply. Cattle could be attacked in shipping centres, stockyards, and other concentration areas. … Food crops would be a primary target, but attack might also be directed against crops that are the source of important industrial oils or textile fibres. … If cereal rusts are employed, local winds would be utilized to spread the infection.”48 The report further noted that “US livestock is notoriously vulnerable to foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest”.49 Much of the NIE-18 report appears to be speculative and theoretical and based on presumptive Soviet capabilities, rather than hard intelligence. However, Leitenberg and Zilinskas report that by this time the NIE concept had become accepted as a briefing tool to the highest rung of US government officials.50 It may therefore have been instrumental in further accelerating US research on anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons. It was, for example, precisely at this moment that the US Chemical Corps decided it should pursue research on the weaponisation of rinderpest “both to better determine how the Soviets might use it and to be ready to use it themselves”.51 By the end of 1951, the US, together with its Tripartite partners, Canada and the UK, is reported to have accumulated a new stockpile of rinderpest vaccines and to share “a growing interest in the virus’s offensive capabilities”.52 Aside from that of the Soviet Union, the largest and most significant BW programme against crops was conducted in the USA during the period 1940–1969. Americans are reported to have had a range of agents ready for mass production by 1945 including Athelia rolfsii, which is the causal agent of “southern blight” in a number of commercially important crops; Phytophthora infestans, which causes “late blight” in potatoes; Magnaporthe grisea, a fungus, which causes blast disease in rice; and Cochliobolus miyabeanus, the cause of brown spot disease in rice plants.53 In the post-war period, the main target for US anti-crop BW research were the wheat fields of the western Soviet Union, especially Ukraine. Many candidate anti-crop BW agents were screened, resulting in five standardised anti-crop agents.54 Research focused on Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Agent TX), the fungus which causes stem rust of wheat, and between 1951 and 1969 the US stockpiled 40 tons of spores at Edgewood Arsenal and Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Denver, Colorado—a quantity estimated to be capable of infecting 106,400 square miles of wheat crop. The wheat crops of the Warsaw Pact countries, including the Soviet Union,

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China and North Korea added up to approximately 124,000 square miles at this time.55 P. graminis is ideal as an anti-crop agent since it remains viable for two years under cool storage conditions and spreads rapidly after being released. Another agent which was weaponised was Tilletia indica, which causes Karnal bunt of wheat.56 The US selected M. grisea (Agent LX) as its main anti-rice agent and between 1962 and 1969 spores were produced under contract to Charles Pfizer and Company and shipped to Fort Detrick for classification drying and storage.57 By 1966 a 0.9-ton stockpile of spores had been accumulated sufficient to infect approximately 5000 square miles of rice crop.58 Since crops are grown over very wide areas the US doctrine for utilising anti-crop weapons was to create several foci of infections distributed over a wide area, not to carpet every area with agent.59 The US developed a range of innovative weapons systems for the dissemination of its anti-crop agents and between 1951 and 1969, 31 anti-crop dissemination trials were conducted at 23 different locations including Camp Detrick in Maryland and in the US Virgin Islands. Perhaps the most unusual of the systems was a 500-pound “feather bomb” which utilised feathers to carry fungal spores to initiate a cereal rust epidemic. Later, during the 1950s, modified F-100, F-105 and F-4C strike aircraft were utilised to spray pathogens over target areas.60 A number of reports applied theoretical vulnerability assessments to scenarios involving attacks on the food crops of the Soviet Union. A previously classified US report in August 1958 “estimated that approximately 72 per cent of calorific intake per capita per day in the former Soviet Union was made up of grain. It was estimated that 30 per cent reductions in body weight could be achieved over a period of 12 months, with mortality and death from starvation increasing significantly.”61 A report produced in March 1956 estimated that the employment of such methods could “cripple the USSR in eighteen months by … dissemination of the rust disease in this grain belt”.62 Soviet specialists were quick to realise that with its arsenal of anti-crop weapons the US was now in a position to launch a potentially catastrophic attack on the USSR’s food supplies. In May 1963, Academician Vasilii Niklolaevich Syurin, the lead figure in the newly emerging agricultural BW network, detailed his assessment of the acute threat posed by the West to Soviet agriculture. Together with V. Stativkin, head of the Plant Protection Service, he issued a special explanatory note to the Soviet Union’s 1964–1965 Research Plan for Protecting Agricultural Crops from

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Biological, Chemical and Nuclear Weapons. Syurin stated that “according to the data we have, special research establishments in the USA, Canada, England and other capitalist countries are engaged in intensive research into developing biological and chemical weapons against agricultural crops. To destroy the wheat and rye crops in the USSR they are preparing stem rust, for the potato crop it will be potato blight, and for cotton, sunflower and soy, it will be the herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-D.” Syurin further argued that the system for protecting these agricultural crops must embrace methods for confirming the use by the enemy of biological and chemical agents. It must also “promptly establish the extent of the affected areas, along with methods to localize and eliminate loci of contamination, and also through selecting and cultivating agricultural crop varieties that are resistant to disease”.63 The entire US anti-crop stockpile was eventually destroyed as part of the country’s biological warfare demilitarisation programme which was completed by February 1973. However, it is interesting to note that Soviet concerns about US capabilities in this area did not totally disappear and persisted well beyond this date into the late 1980s. Georgette Naskidashvili, formerly employed as a senior scientist within the anti-crop BW network and now deceased, reported that, despite a complete lack of any hard evidence, there was a firm belief by Ekologiya analysts that the US offensive anti-crop programme had continued beyond the date when it was officially terminated. Lead scientists within the phytopathology network erroneously asserted that BW agents had been utilised by the US against Soviet wheat crops in the 1970s and 1980s.64 Similar unfounded claims against the US with regard to offensive biological programmes were made by senior personnel in the Soviet Biopreparat system. Such assertions helped the Soviet Union to promulgate the myth that it was in imminent danger of biological attack from the US and its allies, and served to mask the offensive nature of the grandiose programmes which it pursued. One should note that Western scholars have offered a far more convincing explanation of shortfalls in the USSR’s wheat output which arose, not as a result of any covert Western BW activity, but rather because of failings in the central planning system, leading to the persistent inefficiency of Soviet agriculture. Specific failings of Soviet agriculture included collective ownership and poorly defined property rights which provided weak incentives to managers and workers, outdated agricultural production and processing technology, inadequate rural infrastructure for storage

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and transport of commodities from farm to market and a lack of competition in the input and processing industries.65

Notes 1. Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarnii im. Ya.P. Kovalenko (Moskva), Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Tsentral’naya nauchnaya sel’skokhozyaistvennaya biblioteka, http://www.cnshb.ru/bul2.asp?s=af&p=katalog/af/ &a=ru_ csal_auth_249407612.htm, Accessed on the 10 July 2019. 2. Istoricheskaya spravka, Federal’nyi nauchnyi tsentr—vserossiiskii nauchno-­ issledovatel’skii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii imeni K.I. Skryabina i Ya.P.  Kovalenko rossiiskoi akademii nauk, http://viev.ru/o-­viev/ istoricheskaya-­spravka/, Accessed on the 10 July 2019. 3. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons: History. Ecology. Politics, Krasand, Moscow, 2013, p. 37. The Western experts, Kuhn and Leitenberg, refer to work initiated in 1918 at Kuz’minki on anti-livestock agents Kuhn, J.H., Leitenberg, M., The Soviet Biological Warfare Programme, in Lentzos, F. (Ed.), Biological Threats in the 21st Century: The Politics, People, Science and Historical Roots, Imperial College Press, London, 2016, pp. 81, 95. 4. Problemy infektsionnoi patologii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh zhivotnykh: Tezisy dokladov konferentsii, posvyashchennoi 100-letiyu otkrytiya virusa yashchura, 27–31 October 1997, Vladimir, 1997, p. 55. 5. Rimmington, A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare, Hurst & Company, London, 2018, p. 40. 6. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 49. 7. Problemy infektsionnoi patologii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh zhivotnykh, p. 55. 8. USSR: Biological Warfare and Related Research, Secret Information Report, 30 November 1948, Approved for Release 25 May 2011, https:// www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-­r dp82-­00457r002 000320002-­6, Accessed on the 13 June 2019. 9. Ratner, L., Yashchurnyi institut, Front nauki i tekhniki, Nos. 10–11, November 1931, p. 104. 10. Pis’mo iz proshlogo: k 90-letiyu so dnya osnovaniya pervogo v SSSR yashchurnogo instituta, Veterinariya i zhizn’, Information Portal and Newspaper, 13 May 2020, https://www.vetandlife.ru/vizh/sobytiya/ pismo-­iz-­proshlogo-­k-­90-­letiyu-­so-­dnya-­o, 14 December 2020. 11. A Review of Selected Soviet Articles on Foot and Mouth Disease 1929–1957, 1 January 1957, General CIA Records, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01426R009800010002-5.pdf, Accessed on the 10 June 2019.

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12. Rimmington, A., Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Soviet Union’s BW Programme and its Implications for Contemporary Arms Control, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, September 2000, p. 43. 13. ‘Istoriya institute’, FGBNU Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii imeni Ya.R.  Kovalenko, http://viev.ru/o-­viev/istoriya-­instituta; accessed 1 June 2016. See also A Review of Selected Soviet Articles on Foot and Mouth Disease 1929–1957, 1 January 1957. 14. The Soviet BW Programme, Scientific Intelligence Research Aid, OSI-RA/61-3, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Scientific Intelligence, 24 April 1961, Approved for Release in September 1999, p. 70. 15. A Review of Selected Soviet Articles on Foot and Mouth Disease 1929–1957. 16. Ibid., p. 69. 17. The Soviet BW Programme, p. 69. 18. Bojtzov, V., Geissler, E., Military biology in the USSR, 1920–45, p. 159 in Geissler, E., van Courtland Moon, J.E. (Eds.), Biological & Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945, SIPRI Chemical & Biological Warfare Studies No. 18, Oxford University Press, 1999. 19. Ibid., p. 160. 20. Rimmington, A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon, p. 97. 21. Hirsch, W., Soviet BW and CW Preparations and Capabilities, trans. Zaven Nalbandian, Intelligence Branch, Plans, Training and Intelligence Division, Office of the Chief, Chemical Corps, Washington, DC, 1951, p. 158. 22. The Soviet BW Programme, p. 70. 23. ‘Istoriya institute’, FGBNU Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii imeni Ya.R.  Kovalenko, http://viev.ru/o-­viev/istoriya-­instituta; accessed 1 June 2016. 24. Ibid. 25. History, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, https://www.fli. de/en/about-­us/historie/fli-­riems/, Accessed on the 14 June 2019. 26. Geissler, E., Biological warfare activities in Germany, 1923–45, in Geissler, E., van Courtland Moon, J.E. (Eds.), Biological & Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945, SIPRI Chemical & Biological Warfare Studies No. 18, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 110. 27. Ibid., p. 124. 28. The Bacteriological Research Institute on the Island of Riems, Top Secret Information Report, General CIA Records, 15 February 1949, Approved for Release 1 February 2006, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/ docs/CIA-RDP83-00415R002200020014-9.pdf, Accessed on the 13 June 2019.

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29. Geissler, E., Biological Warfare in Germany, 1923–45, pp. 109-110, 120. 30. Geissler, E., Conversion of BTW Facilities: Lessons from German History, p.60 in Geissler, E., Gazsό, Buder, E. (Eds.), Conversion of BTW Facilities, NATO Science Series, 1. Disarmament Technologies—Vol. 21, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1998. 31. The Bacteriological Research Institute on the Island of Riems. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Yeadon, G., with Hawkins, J., The Nazi Hydra in America: Suppressed History of a Century, Wall Street and the Rise of the Fourth Reich, Progressive Press, Joshua Tree, California, 2008. 36. Jacobsen, A., Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Programme that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, Little, Brown, New York, 2014. 37. Maddrell, P., Operation Matchbox and the Scientific Containment of the USSR, p. 173 in Jackson, P., Siegel, J. (Eds.), Intelligence and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society, Praeger, Westport, CT, 2005. 38. Ibid., p. 187. 39. Ibid., pp. 186–187. 40. A Review of Selected Soviet Articles on Foot and Mouth Disease 1929–1957. 41. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 71. 42. Rimmington, A., Ex-USSR Biotechnology Industry: Contact Directory, Technology Detail, York, August 1993, p. 99. 43. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, pp.  18–19  in Frazier, T.W., Richardson, D.C., Food and Agricultural Security: Guarding Against Natural Threats and Terrorist Attacks Affecting Health, National Food Supplies, and Agricultural Economics, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 894, 1999. 44. The Soviet BW Programme, pp. 76-77. 45. Harris, R., Paxman, J., A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Gas and Germ Warfare, Chatto & Windus, London, 1982, p. 99. 46. The Probability of Soviet Employment of BW and CW in the Event of Attacks Upon the US, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE-18), Central Intelligence Agency, 10 January 1951, https://fas.org/irp/threat/ cbw/niecbw1951.pdf, Accessed on the 19 June 2019. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 352. 51. McVety, A.K., The Rinderpest Campaigns: A Virus, Its Vaccines, and Global Development in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 187–188.

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52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Covert, N.M., Cutting Edge: A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland 1943–1993, Public Affairs Office, Headquarters US Army Garrison, Fort Detrick, Maryland, 1994, p. 28. 55. 145. Memorandum From Morton Halperin of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, 28 August 1969, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. E–2, Documents on Arms Control and Nonproliferation, 1969–1972, Document 145, US Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/ frus1969-­76ve02/d145, Accessed on the 26 January 2021. 56. Barnaby, W., What Should the G8 do About the Biological Warfare Threat to International Food Safety, in Frazier, T.W., Richardson, D.C., Food and Agricultural Security: Guarding Against Natural Threats and Terrorist Attacks Affecting Health, National Food Supplies, and Agricultural Economics, Annals of the New  York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 894, 1999, p. 223. 57. Covert, N.M., Cutting Edge, p. 31. 58. Memorandum from Morton Halperin of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger). 59. Casagrande, R., Biological Terrorism Targeted at Agriculture: The Threat to US National Security, The Nonproliferation Review, Fall-Winter, 2000, p. 96. 60. Harris, R., Paxman, J., A Higher Form of Killing, p. 99. 61. Millet, P.D., Whitby, S.M., State Agro-BW Programmes, in Pate, J., Cameron, G., Agro-Terrorism: What Is the Threat? Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. November 12–13, 2000, United States Department of Energy, 2001, p.  20, https://www.hsdl. org/?view&did=3513, Accessed on the 29 March 2019. 62. Whitby, S.M., Biological Warfare Against Crops, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2002, p. 149. 63. This is an excerpt from the Explanatory Note to the 1964–1965 Research Plan for Protecting Agricultural Crops from Biological, Chemical and Nuclear Weapons, reproduced in Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 72. 64. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (then Director), Main Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 65. Mudahar, Mohinder S., Jolly, Robert W., Srivastava, J.P., Transforming the Agricultural Research Systems in Transition Economies: the Case of Russia, The World Bank, Washington, D.C., May 1998, pp. 20–27.

CHAPTER 3

Codename Ekologiya: Khrushchev and the Launch of the Soviet Union’s Large-­ Scale Agricultural Biowarfare Programme

In September 1953, Nikita Khrushchev was officially accorded the title of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).1 Under his leadership there was a major new emphasis on agriculture within the Soviet economy. In order to alleviate ongoing food shortages, he launched the Virgin Lands Campaign which sought dramatic increases in agricultural production, with the sown area being enlarged by some 35 million hectares of dry-farming land.2 It is against this background of massive investment in the farming sector, that Khrushchev launched a new biological warfare programme focused on agriculture. Presumably it was anticipated by the leadership that the creation of the new network of military R&D facilities would not only enhance defence capabilities but also provide a major boost to the country’s wider agricultural research programmes. The first preliminary step towards the creation of a large-scale agricultural biowarfare programme was the issue by the Soviet government on 15 February 1956 of resolution No. 251-163 of the USSR Council of Ministers, concerning the development of chemical and biological agents to attack agricultural crops and livestock of the “potential adversary”.3 Under the terms of this resolution, the USSR Ministry of Defence was charged with the creation of a secret new test site, the Experimental Proving Ground No. 7, for conducting trials of anti-plant and anti-animal chemical and biological weapons. It was to be sited at an existing military © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_3

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base located at the remote settlement of Gvardeiskii in Kazakhstan. Construction was begun at the site of a number of experimental stations and laboratories for the USSR Ministry of Agriculture.4 These were shortly to be utilised in the creation in Gvardeiskii of a new agricultural BW institute (see pp. 55–60). Just a little over two years later, on 7 August 1958, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the USSR Council of Ministers issued decree No. 909-426 “for strengthening work in the field of microbiology and virology”.5 A corresponding Order No. 233–13 “concerning measures for strengthening scientific-research work in the field of microbiology and virology” was then issued on 20 August 1958 by Vladimir Vladimirovich Matskevich, the Khrushchev-­ appointed USSR Minister of Agriculture.6 In reality the August 1958 decree and Matskevich’s Order are reported to have established six specialised research institutes and their affiliated branches under the USSR Ministry of Agriculture (Minsel’khoz or simply MSKh SSSR) to conduct an ambitious anti-livestock and anti-crop offensive biological warfare programme.7 The latter was given the codename Ekologiya (Ecology), which was also referred to as Problem “E”.8 A secret department of Minsel’khoz—the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-Production Establishments (GUNIiEPU) —was established to manage the Ekologiya programme.9 The new department was also referred to as the 7th (Special) Administration of Minsel’khoz.10 GUNIiEPU operated in a remarkably similar fashion to Biopreparat maintaining a very high level of secrecy and using its subordination to a civil ministry to effectively conceal its offensive BW activities. It is reported to have incorporated “a wide network of research institutes that engaged in experimental, industrial, and testing work across the entire country”.11 The Ekologiya programme was comprised of two very distinct strands, one focusing on plant diseases and the other on diseases associated with agricultural animals. The three anti-crop facilities created as a result of the 1958 decree were: the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology—VNIIF (Moscow oblast’); the North Caucasus Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology—SKNIIF (Krasnodar); and the Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology—SANIIF (Durmen’, Tashkent oblast’, Uzbekistan). In addition, two major anti-­ livestock facilities were established by the decree: the All-Union Scientific-­ Research Institute of Virology and Microbiology—VNIIVViM

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(Vol’ginskii, Pokrov, Vladimir oblast’); and the All-Union Scientific-­ Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute—or VNIYaI (Yur’evets, Vladimir oblast’). The decree also created the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute—NISKhI (Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan)— which was unique in that as well as its main focus on livestock, it also incorporated an anti-crop component.12 Another highly distinctive aspect of the Gvardeiskii facility is that it was also reported to have been attached to a Ministry of Defence proving ground for biological weapons.13 It is interesting to note that the key focus of the new anti-livestock BW facilities was on animal viruses. According to Leitenberg and Zilinskas, the Soviet leadership had concluded in the early 1950s that defensive capabilities were in adequate shape with regard to any “bacteriological component” of a possible biological attack. However, it was considered that the Soviet Union remained vulnerable to any “virological component”. At this time the country only possessed a single facility focused on viruses, the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences’ D.I. Ivanovskii Institute of Virology (Moscow).14 It was the perceived weakness in this area which had prompted the creation by the USSR Ministry of Defence in March 1954 of the Scientific-Research Sanitary Institute in Zagorsk (present-day Sergiev Posad).15 Clearly, one of the roles of the new network would be to work in close collaboration with the Soviet military virologists. The USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s new virology facilities would provide the military with knowledge of, and access to, a whole new range of exotic zoonotic infections, able to be transmitted from animals to humans, including for example Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) and Japanese encephalitis virus. In addition, agents with a potentially devastating impact on agricultural animal populations could be studied including FMD and sheeppox and goatpox viruses. The close collaboration which arose as the result of overlapping scientific interests between the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Agriculture scientists would eventually lead to the creation within GUNIiEPU’s facilities of reserve mobilisation capacity for production of BW agents.

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The Generals in Charge: Military Oversight of the Ekologiya Programme The Soviet authorities created a top-secret Scientific-Technical Council (NTS) to manage the Ekologiya programme. The council, which was under the control of the USSR Ministry of Defence, supervised the entire spectrum of R&D on both anti-livestock and anti-crop BW agents. One of the early foci of the NTS was on viral genetics and nucleic acid biochemistry. No less a figure than Aleksander Nikolaevich Shelepin, the Chairman of the KGB had called for a stepping-up of research in this area. Soviet weakness in this sphere had developed when, during the period from 1948 through to 1964, biological sciences within the Soviet Union had been dominated by Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. His rejection of Mendelian genetics and the concept of the gene in favour of pseudoscientific theories based on the heritability of acquired characteristics (Lamarckism) had received high-level support from Joseph Stalin and, subsequently, by Nikita Khrushchev. On 7 August 1948, the V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) formally adopted Lysenkoism as the only correct theory. Criticism of Lysenko was condemned as “bourgeois” or “fascist”. As part of the suppression of Mendelian genetics, more than 3000 biologists were made redundant or imprisoned including the prominent botanist and geneticist, Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, who perished in prison in 1943. It was not until 1952 that the situation with Lysenko began to change and the ban on criticising him was finally lifted a decade later. On 14 July 1961, a special session of the NTS was held at the USSR Ministry of Defence. It brought together researchers from the military, the USSR Ministry of Health and the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. The importance of the event is evidenced by the fact that no less a figure than Mikhail Aleksandrovich Olshansky, the Soviet Minister of Agriculture, was in attendance. In his report to the CPSU Central Committee on the meeting, the latter noted that “achievements of recent years in the directed modification of antigen structure and enhancing the aggressivity of pathogens for infectious human, animal and plant diseases create the prospect of obtaining viruses and bacteria with the desired biological properties. For this reason, research into the genetics of viruses and the biochemistry of nucleic acids may have great military significance.”16 He further added that, to date, Soviet research in viral genetics and nucleic acid biochemistry remained on too small a scale and required expansion.17

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A major focus of the special session of the NTS was on the creation of highly aggressive pathogens and the meeting defined the major directions of research to be conducted by institutes belonging to the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. In particular, it was envisaged that the newly created Institute for Radiation and Physical-­ Chemical Biology under the USSR Academy of Sciences would take a lead role in the area of nucleic acid biochemistry. In response to the meeting, Olshansky issued the instruction that “the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology and the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology of the Agriculture Ministry’s 7th (Special) Directorate … expand the scope of their work on nucleic acid biochemistry in response to the need to study issues of the directed mutability of viruses and the genetics of microorganisms”.18 It is apparent then that the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW network took a lead role in the Soviet Union’s restoration of Mendelian genetics and its application in its military biological programmes. Later, in the early 1970s, there was a significant expansion and intensification of the wider Soviet BW programme, and the NTS was subsumed within a newly created Interdepartmental Scientific-Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (Mezhdomstvennyi nauchno-tekhnicheskii sovet po molekulyarnoi biologii i genetike, abbreviated for convenience in the text as MNTS). Like the 1961 special session of the NTS, it too sought to coordinate the research of both the military and the various civil ministries and academies in the utilisation of a newly emerging technology, in this case molecular biology, in the pursuit of the creation of a new generation of genetically engineered pathogens for use as biological weapons. The interaction of the Ekologiya programme with the MNTS is discussed in Chap. 4. The NTS subsequently established subordinate “Animal” and “Plant” sections. The latter was created under the terms of Minsel’khoz Order No. 245-24c issued on 23 December 1963. This pivotal think-tank incorporated leading personnel from a number of key anti-crop BW facilities belonging to GUNIiEPU including VNIIF (Bol’shie Vyazemy, near Moscow), the North Caucasus Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (Krasnodar) and the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii). Appendix B provides a full listing of these scientists and their respective institutions. It is interesting to note that Ivan Mikhailovich Polyakov also sat on the plant section of the NTS. He was the director of the All-Union Institute of Plant Protection (Pushkin, near

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Leningrad). This ostensibly civil facility was not part of the GUNIiEPU network but historically is linked to early Soviet BW work targeting plants. Polyakov’s position on the NTS section suggests that his institute continued to undertake military projects within the Ekologiya programme. Other Soviet departments were also represented, including the USSR Ministry of the Chemical Industry which played a leading role in the development of tactical herbicides for the military. The USSR Ministry of Defence maintained control of the plant section of the council, appointing Lieutenant Colonel N.K. Bliznyuk as its representative. In order to disguise his close links to the military, he assumed the title of a head of laboratory within VNIIF.19 As has already been indicated, Minsel’khoz established a special division, the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-­ Production Establishments (GUNIiEPU), to research, develop and manufacture anti-livestock and anti-crop weapons. The first head of the new agency was a Soviet major general from the military-veterinary service, Adrian Mitrofanovich Laktionov (see Appendix C).20 He was a specialist in the field of infectious viral animal diseases, epizootiology and microbiology.21 During the crucial period of November 1944 through to 1946, Laktionov had headed up the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Veterinary Administration (Glavvetupra) and in 1945 was awarded the Order of Lenin for his service.22 His ability to serve in sensitive posts is highlighted by the fact that he had served for two years as a senior advisor to the head of the Veterinary Department of China’s People’s Liberation Army.23 However, it was Laktionov’s work in 1953, when he defended his doctoral dissertation on equine infectious anaemia (EIA), a blood-borne infectious viral disease in horses, which ultimately appears to have secured him his new position. His expertise in virology was considered a vital requirement for the management of GUNIiEPU which had a major focus at this time on the use of new viral pathogens in its agricultural BW programmes. In Autumn 1961, Academician Vasilii Nikolaevich Syurin was the next to take up the position as head of GUNIiEPU. He served in this position until 1968.24 Interestingly, like Laktionov, he had had a period of service in China, participating, from 1941 to 1943, in an expedition focused on controlling FMD in that country. In 1958 he joined the Soviet Union’s newly created secret BW network and was appointed as head of the All-­ Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology (VNIIVViM), serving concurrently as head of its Department of Virology. He retained the latter position when, from Autumn 1961

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through to 1968, he served as head of GUNIiEPU. His appointment as head of the agricultural BW agency further highlights the emphasis being placed by the Soviet military authorities on the new field of virology in respect to development of novel BW agents. Syurin was a leading expert on the Newcastle disease virus and in 1963 published a monograph on the disease.25 The head of the Directorate during the mid-1970s and early 1980s was Major General Mikhail Aleksandrovich Khudyakov. He was first identified by the CIA as the head of the Directorate on 15 October 1975. He was still in post in November 1984.26 The last head of GUNIiEPU was Fedor Petrovich Kurchenko.27 Immediately upon its formation, GUNIiEPU made a special request to the USSR Ministry of Defence for assistance with the recruitment of trained microbiologists, and a large number of military personnel were subsequently transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture’s BW facilities.28 The initial focus on viral pathogens in the Ekologiya programme meant that Laktionov turned first to the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-­ Research Sanitary Institute (NIIS) in Zagorsk. This facility had only been in existence since September 1953 and had responsibility for military research on viruses.29 Sometime around January 1960, General Vladimir Yakovlevich Podalyan, the director of NIIS, received a letter from the Ministry of Defence concerning the transfer of specialised personnel to GUNIiEPU. One of those selected was Colonel Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich Khanduev, a specialist in virology and tissue culture. The order confirming his transfer from Zagorsk to the Ministry of Agriculture’s BW facility in Gvardeiskii (Kazakhstan) was personally signed by Marshall Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovskii, the Minister of Defence. Prior to his transfer, Khanduev was required to visit the USSR Ministry of Agriculture and was personally interviewed by Major General Laktionov. After an hour’s grilling, including probing questions about his non-Russian origins—he was born in Buryatia—Laktionov despatched Khanduev to the Zhambul’ Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii). Although the institute was located in Kazakhstan, Colonel Khanduev was allocated an apartment in Frunze (Kyrgyzstan), the nearest city to the remote agricultural facility. Khanduev appears to have been an exceptional case however, since the bulk of the personnel transferred from NIIS to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture are reported to have been posted to management roles at GUNIiEPU’s Moscow HQ.30 In order to ensure that the GUNIiEPU network was taking the necessary steps to establish research capabilities in virology, a number of on-site

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inspections were undertaken. In June 1960, for example, General Laktionov visited the facility located at Gvardeiskii settlement in Kazakhstan. He is reported to have been impressed with the progress made in the preparation of tissue cultures—for the cultivation of viruses— and to have personally ordered the creation at the site of a Department of Virology. This, he instructed, should be provided with its own separate building. Subsequently, no less a figure than Vladimir Vladimirovich Matskevich, the Soviet Minister of Agriculture, appointed Colonel Khanduev as head of this new scientific unit. However, upon his arrival in Gvardeiskii, Khanduev was informed by R.I. Madatov, the director, that I.S. Kuchmasov had already been appointed head of the Department of Virology. It took 12 days for the order to arrive from Moscow confirming that Colonel Khanduev was to take charge of the department. The incident highlights the frenzied nature of the activity underway during the first few months that the new agricultural BW network was being established. Initially, Khanduev and the other members of the department—the aforementioned Kuchmasov, a senior researcher named V.P. Karasev and a technician—were accommodated in just two rooms with a single desk being made available to them all. Khanduev immediately despatched his two subordinates to Moscow where they were to be trained in tissue culture techniques at the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences’ D.I. Ivanovskii Institute of Virology—one of very few Soviet institutions then engaged in R&D on viruses.31 Laktionov’s replacement, Syurin, continued to place emphasis on the nascent virology programme and as part of this endeavour, appointed Colonel Khanduev as deputy scientific director at Gvardeiskii.32

First Steps: Pursuit of the Ekologiya Programme at the Palace on the Znamenskoe-Sadki Estate An interesting aspect with regard to the origins of the new network is that two of the leading facilities created by the 1958 decree—VNIIF (anti-­ crop) and VNIIVViM (anti-animal)—were both initially linked to the Bitsa Agricultural Technical College in Moscow oblast’. This is one of the only instances in which the two very distinct branches of the Soviet agricultural BW programme overlap in the same institution—the only other example being the anti-crop BW work at the Gvardeiskii veterinary institute in Kazakhstan. It is interesting to speculate whether the college at this

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time had any secret defence role or that it just happened to be available and provided a convenient base close to Moscow. The college was located within the Znamenskoe-Sadki estate to the south-west of Moscow. From the middle of the eighteenth century until the October Revolution (1917) the estate and its palace belonged to the Trubetskoy family (see Fig. 3.1). In 1922 a Technical College of Medicinal Plants was established on the estate. It later changed its focus to seed production and was renamed as the Bitsa Technical College for Selection and Seed Production of Grain

Fig. 3.1  Palace on the Znamenskoye-Sadki Estate, Bitsa, Moscow oblast’, 18:15:52, 30 July 2007. Photographer: Maslova, Lyudmila, Moscow (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license; This image was uploaded as part of European Science Photo Competition 2015, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/%D0%9C%D0 %BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B0._%D0%94%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80% D0%B5%D1%86_%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%8C%D0%B1%D1%8B _%D0%97%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D 0%BE%D0%B5-­%D0%A1%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8.jpg)

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Crops. It appears to have had a subordinate farm under its management. VNIIVViM—which reports that it was established under the terms of Order No. 300 of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture issued on 13 November 1958—took up residency at the site in 1959 and was not transferred to Vol’ginskii (Pokrov raion, Vladimir oblast’), its permanent home, until the beginning of 1963.33 From 1958 through to 1962, during the period that VNIIVViM was being established at the Bitsa College, none other than Vasilii Niklolaevich Syurin, a leading veterinary virologist, served as director of the institute. Syurin was a key player in the creation and management of the GUNIiEPU network and, in the Autumn of 1961, he was placed concomitantly in overall charge of its anti-crop and anti-livestock BW programme (see pp. 38–39). He was replaced as Director of VNIIVViM in 1962 by Major General Laktionov, who had served as the previous head of GUNIiEPU (see p.  38).34 The appointment of such high-ranking figures from the USSR Ministry of Agriculture to the management of VNIIVViM strongly suggests that it had a lead role in the overall coordination of the anti-­ livestock BW programme. Certainly, Igor’ Valerianovich Domaradskii, a key scientist and administrator in the Soviet offensive BW programme, noted that VNIIVViM comprised “‘one of the biggest’ players in an extensive network of institutes exploring anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons that could be delivered by bomb or missile”.35 Laktionov appears only to have been appointed as a caretaker and in November 1963, Igor’ Alekseevich Bakulov was appointed as director of VNIIVViM and he is credited with the lead role in shaping the subsequent development of the institute. Bakulov was a war veteran who subsequently graduated in 1951 from the Military-Veterinary Faculty of the Moscow Veterinary Academy. Crucially from 1962 to 1963 he served as an instructor in the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the RSFSR where he will undoubtedly have secured the political support necessary for his appointment to such a prestigious new facility.36 Bakulov served as Director of VNIIVViM until 1990 and was showered with honours for his achievements including the award of the highly prestigious USSR State Prize.37 Meanwhile, heading-up Ekologiya’s anti-crop wing, VNIIF was organised on 20 August 1958 on the basis of VNIIZR’s Moscow Plant Protection Station (STAZR) and the Bitsa Agricultural Technical College.38 The common linkage of the two anti-crop and anti-animal institutes to the Bitsa College at this time is intriguing. There is no corroborating

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reference to any physical buildings belonging to VNIIF on the Znamenskoe-­Sadki estate at this time. Possibly the phytopathology institute absorbed the laboratories belonging to STAZR but used the farm attached to the Bitsa College for its experimental work. It may also have enjoyed some limited access to laboratories for its field work. VNIIF’s work at the site would then have benefited from the strong security cordon which is reported to have been put in place by the authorities around VNIIVViM and the adjoining estate.39 The Soviet government directed substantive financial resources to the institute. By 1 January 1959, some 349 personnel were employed at VNIIF’s seven laboratories, including 5 Doctors of Science and 33 Candidates of Science. Professor Dmitrii Lukich Tverskoi was appointed the first director of VNIIF. He had previously been employed at VNIIZR (Pushkin, Leningrad) which had earlier managed the USSR’s anti-crop BW programme. Later, he was head of the Laboratory of Phytopathology at STAZR, which was subsequently used as part of the basis for the formation of VNIIF.40 The crucial period in Tverskoi’s development as a plant pathologist however had been his employment in the Section of Tobacco and Makhorka Diseases in Artur Arturovich Yachevskii’s Laboratory of Mycology and Phytopathology (Leningrad). For the first three decades of the twentieth century this was a research centre of excellence and a pivotal advisory body which coordinated the work of mycologists and plant pathologists at locations across the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. Yachevskii authored the first textbooks on plant pathology in Russian and wrote a number of articles on various plant rusts and, in 1909, a book entitled Rusts of Grain Crops in Russia, which provided analysis of disease distribution and environmental factors impacting on the development of disease, disease control and a list of the important rust fungi in Russia. Yachevskii argued that the selection of resistant cultivars was the basic method of controlling rust disease.41 Tverskoi is reported to have been a favourite student of Yachevskii’s and no doubt was heavily influenced by the latter with regard to recognising the crucial importance in his new military network of establishing a geographically widely dispersed chain of observation stations and mycology and plant pathology laboratories.42 Tverskoi’s deputy scientific director was Professor Yurii Nikolaevich Fadeev who later was appointed director of VNIIF and served in this position from 1963 through to 1974.43 From 1970 through to 1982, Fadeev occupied the powerful position of Academician-Secretary at the V.I. Lenin

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All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL). The academy at this time was directly subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture.44 Fadeev’s position enabled him to have enormous influence over the entire civil-military network of Soviet plant protection institutes and stations. He was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council which coordinated the Ekologiya programme (see Appendix B). On 1 December 1958, a number of key research laboratories were established at VNIIF. These included the Laboratory of Epiphytology of Cereal Crop Diseases, incorporating groups working on diseases of wheat, rye and barley and on mathematical modelling and forecasting. The lab was headed by Professor Konstantin Mikhailovich Stepanov, one of the pivotally important scientists in the Soviet anti-crop network. He was soon to gain international attention for his research focused on aerobiology which had been conducted since the 1930s. In 1935, Stepanov, then based in Leningrad, released microscopic spores of Tilletia caries, a fungal wheat pathogen, in the wind, observing their diffusion.45 That same year he authored a 66-page Russian-language paper on the dissemination of infective diseases of plants by air currents.46 Stepanov later established good relations with Dr Philip Herries Gregory, a leading international researcher in aerobiology and the airborne spread of potato viral diseases, based at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, UK. During the period of the Second World War, Gregory discovered Stepanov’s 56-page 1935 scientific paper on infection gradients. To read it, Gregory “learned Russian during long nights sitting up as an Air Raid Warden using a language course on phonographic records purchased with the proceeds from selling his grandfather’s gold watch”.47 Gregory was subsequently able to use Stepanov’s work to prove “that the diffusion theory accurately described the carriage of microscopic pathogens: the concentration of spores in the air decreased with the distance from the source”.48 During the course of Gregory’s work, the military aspects of such research quickly became apparent and “although a peace-loving man, … (he) had realized the excellent lead in air sampling methods created by the microbiological and chemical warfare establishments then at Porton Down, Wiltshire”.49 Gregory had initially relied on simple methods to trap airborne spores but had then come to the realisation that freely exposed sticky surface traps were extremely selective with regard to large spores with smaller particles being virtually entirely missed. It was at this point that Gregory turned to the “new principles and better standards

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(which) were provided by studies, initially for defence against poison gases, but latterly conducted at the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down. These introduced the principle of isokinetic air-sampling and designs that deposited even the smallest particles collected on slides where they could be assessed, rather than failing to retain them or depositing many on other internal surfaces.”50 The research team at Rothamsted subsequently used designs supplied by the Microbiological Research Establishment to construct a small wind tunnel.51 It is fascinating that Gregory and Stepanov, both with close links to the military, should at the height of the Cold War have developed such a strong regard for each other’s work. In 1961, Gregory released his book on The Microbiology of the Atmosphere, which Stepanov subsequently translated into Russian and edited.52 Stepanov later employed a small Antonov-2 aircraft with an on-board laboratory for vertical probing of the atmosphere (with a 2-km maximum altitude). One of the participants in this work was Sergei Stepanovich Sanin who had completed his Candidate’s thesis on aerobiology and was later provided with his own aerial laboratory based on a specially adapted aircraft (samoletnaya laboratoriya PARZ—the PARZ aerial laboratory) for studies of the transfer of fungal spores across mountains, lakes and other terrain. Sanin and his co-workers spent many hundreds of hours flying time engaged in aerobiological studies (see pp. 52 & 58). It is evident that Stepanov’s research on aerobiology, with its potential military applications, was at the very heart of the Soviet anti-crop BW programme. This is reflected by the fact that he was, during the course of his work, showered with honours by the Soviet authorities, including the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and a number of medals. Another VNIIF scientist with a strong focus on military-related technologies was Professor Viktor Fedorovich Dunskii. He had attended the Central Institute of Aircraft Engine Engineering (TsIAM) as a postgraduate and here obtained his Candidate of Technical Sciences degree. In 1955, he was directed to the agricultural sector where he was appointed to a position at STAZR (see p. 42) which, in 1958, was incorporated into the newly formed VNIIF. Here, Dunskii was appointed head of the Laboratory of Agricultural Aerosols and went on to become one of the leading Soviet scientists in the field of pesticide and microbial aerosols and his work became familiar to Western researchers. He worked on both theoretical and applied aspects of aerosol generation including monodispersed, highly

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dispersed, coarsely dispersed and unipolarly charged aerosols. He undertook a large number of practical experiments in this area including the testing of helicopters fitted with aerosol generators.53 He was aided in his work by a subordinate colleague, Nikolai Vasil’evich Nikitin, who was employed in the Laboratory of Agricultural Aerosols within VNIIF’s Herbology Department. While the Soviet literature focuses on the civil applications of Dunskii’s work, clearly the technology he developed could potentially have found use in offensive military biological applications. Among other labs formed in 1958 at VNIIF were the Laboratory of Bacterial Plant Diseases (headed by Irina Vladimirovna Voronkevich), the Laboratory of Experimental Mycology (headed by Yuliya Vasil’evna Vorob’eva) and the Laboratory of Agricultural Toxicology (headed by Professor Fadeev—see pp.  43–44). In 1959 the Laboratory of Fungal Diseases of Potato and Vegetable Crops (headed by Professor Tverskoi) and the Laboratory of Acarology and Entomology (headed by G.V. Gusev) were established. At this time three key scientists were also transferred to VNIIF from the All-Union Institute of Plant Protection in Leningrad. These were Galina Fillipovna Maklakova, Natal’ya Evgen’evna Konovalova and Vera Fedoseevna Rashevskaya.54 The last immediately created the Laboratory for Genetics of Phytopathogens, initiating research on rust fungi and rice blast disease. VNIIF was eventually transferred to its permanent home, an estate at Bol’shie Vyazemy, around 41 km to the south-west of Moscow. Here it appropriated the buildings which had formerly belonged to the S.M. Budennyi Zootechnical Institute of Horse-Breeding. The latter facility had been transferred in 1954 to Izhevsk.55 By incredible coincidence, VNIIF’s new base at Bol’shie Vyazemy was located only some 14 km distance from the former site of one of the Red Army’s first BW facilities at Vlasikha, close to the Perkhushkovo railway station.56 A “science town” was rapidly created at the Bol’shie Vyazemy site with construction of five-­ storied living accommodation having been completed by 1962. VNIIF’s main laboratory building, greenhouse complex and garage were put into operation at the site in 1965.57 VNIIF was successful in recruiting significant numbers of military biological scientists from the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-Research Institute of Hygiene (Sverdlovsk). One such is reported to have been Ivan Nikiforovich Nikurashin, an electrical engineer, who was a specialist in the development of measuring instruments. A posting to VNIIF was greatly valued by the military biologists, both because of its proximity to Moscow

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and because of its privileged access to scarce foodstuffs and consumer items.58 Just a year after its own establishment, VNIIF created its first major branch facility in Kobuleti, Georgia—officially named as the Georgian Branch of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology— known in Russian as the Gruzinskii filial VNII fitopatologii (see Fig. 3.2). The activities of this branch are described in much more detail in Chaps. 6 and 7. Its main task was to undertake experiments commissioned by VNIIF scientists, although Kobuleti personnel also designed their own trials and initiated their own research projects. It should also be noted that the facility at Kobuleti was a major institution in its own right, employing around 170 personnel with numbers being greatly swelled by the arrival of scientists from VNIIF during the growing season. It incorporated an administration building, main building, two greenhouse complexes and a secure greenhouse which were protected by three concentric rings of security—much like a Matryoshka doll, with associated guard posts, security wiring, floodlights and so on. Internally there were also elaborate security systems with extensive alarm wiring of all doors and pressure-sensitive pads on windows. By 1964, laboratories had been created at the site which focused on phytopathology, biological control, selection and genetics of microorganisms, herbicides, toxicology and fungicides. One of the lead scientists based at Kobuleti in the early period was

Fig. 3.2  View of main building, Georgian Branch of the All-Union Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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Professor Vladimir Borisovich Lebedev who served from 1973 through to 1982 in the position of deputy scientific director.59 VNIIF acted as the lead facility for the anti-crop element of the Ekologiya programme. As well as possessing its own subordinate branches it also coordinated the military research of newly constructed anti-crop facilities in Durmen’ (Uzbekistan), Krasnodar and the plant pathogen laboratories at NISKhI in Gvardeiskii (Kazakhstan). The Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (SANIIF) was created contemporaneously with VNIIF in 1958 in Durmen’, some 10 km north-­ east of Tashkent (see Fig. 3.3). SANIIF is reported to have been formed on the basis of the Central Asian branch of the All-Union Scientific-­ Research Institute of Plant Protection (VNIIZR), a facility already linked to historic Soviet work on anti-crop BW (see pp. 22–23).60 SANIIF possessed a staff of around 1000 and incorporated three major blocks containing nineteen laboratories, a guardhouse, greenhouses and an experimental farm. The concrete perimeter walls were topped with barbed Fig. 3.3  View of water tower erected in 1959, Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 11 December 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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wire and entrance was via a mechanical steel gate.61 To maintain supplies of fresh water, a 180-metre deep well was sunk which incorporated an electric pump which was very costly to maintain. The institute also possessed its very own large concrete air-raid shelter which could accommodate all the facility’s staff in the case of an aerial attack.62 The facility was of great importance in the Soviet anti-crop programme, playing a key role in the testing of biological and chemical agents. It possessed a 25-hectare proving ground (poligon) for testing anti-crop biological warfare agents. In addition, a 700-hectare area was utilised to test non-specific herbicides, with particular emphasis upon defoliants synthesised at “special” (presumably military) institutes located at undisclosed sites in the USSR. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union more than 1200 chemicals were tested (using a range of 22 biochemical tests) on plants at Durmen’ every year. As a direct result of its work, the facility established a unique collection of fungal pathogens against wheat and rice described as “the world’s largest”.63 The site also incorporated a phytotron complex possessing thirty-­ five controlled environment growth chambers.64 It also incorporated its own branch in Fergana and two experimental field stations.65 Very little is known of either the management or the R&D programmes pursued at SANIIF. The first director of the facility was Evgenii Vladimirovich Shver who appears to have served in this position for around three decades.66 In 1988, Professor Lebedev, the former scientific director at Kobuleti (see pp. 47–48) was appointed as director at SANIIF and concomitantly headed up its Laboratory of Immunity of Grain Crops. He served as director until 1993. A senior scientist, Rustam Makhmudovich, who worked on offensive projects at the facility, reports: “In the Soviet period we were concerned only with military research, including radiation testing”.67 During the period September 1989 to December 1991, Gennadii Ivanovich Kobyl’skii served as deputy scientific director at the institute where he presumably continued his research on Septoria.68 Another senior scientist during the period from about 1981–1991 was Dr Batyr Achilovich Khasanov. He had originally joined the institute in 1972 and his Laboratory of Rust Disease Forecasts incorporated an Aerobiology Group. It is also reported that during the late 1980s the Soviet scientists at SANIIF were attempting to create a more deadly strain of Pleospora papaveracea (see Chap. 7).69 Part of its research may also have involved purification and production of mycotoxins.70 An individual who worked as a senior scientist at SANIIF reports that there were three main research groups employed within the facility. Group

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1 was focused on wheat rusts (see Chap. 6). It also incorporated the Laboratory of Immunology, where research was conducted on rice blast, and the Laboratory of Virology which was focused on viral diseases of wheat. Group 2 comprised chemical specialists working on a range of herbicides, defoliants and plant growth regulators. The work on defoliants involved both wheat and cotton. Group 3 comprised specialists working with radioactive materials. In a long-term research programme, they utilised a number of field plots on a 0.4-hectare special area to measure radioactive accumulation in wheat and other plants and explored the possibility of using plants for decontamination of soil. The researchers also attempted to identify plants which exhibited minimal or zero uptake of radionuclides, including caesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60.71 A total of 80 separate 1 m square plots were utilised for this work with different radionuclides placed in special chambers made of concrete and the plants monitored (see Fig. 3.4). In the post-Soviet period, the US employing a

Fig. 3.4  View of hazard sign “Radioactivity” at entrance to SANIIF site for testing uptake of radionucleotides in crops, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 19 May 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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helicopter to define the areas of radioactive contamination assisted in the removal of these chambers and their transfer to a protected site.72 Scientists at SANIIF report that the facility was a major producer of the antibiotic sesquiterpenes, trichodermin-1 and trichodermin-4. The products are based on Trichoderma viride (syn. T. lignorum) which is grown on peat or lignin and supplemented with nutrients. SANIIF used a 100-litre fermenter to produce 500 kg per annum of the trichodermins. The institute supplied the product to customers across the Soviet Union where it was employed to reduce cotton wilt caused by the fungus, Verticillium dahliae, and increase yield.73 However, Western specialists are sceptical and note that “it is by no means clear whether it is always a reliably successful control measure and, more especially, whether it is practical in commercial culture and cost-effective viz á viz the use of partially-resistant cultivars”.74 Another of the Soviet anti-crop facilities initially subordinate to VNIIF was its North Caucasus Branch. This was established on 20 August 1959 in correspondence with the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s decree No. 174 issued on the 3 August of that year. The new branch was created on the basis of the Second Department of the Krasnodar Scientific-Research Institute of Agriculture. It is not known if this department had previously been engaged in anti-crop BW research or whether it simply comprised a group of experts who could be redirected to such work. However, under the terms of a second decree (No. 119), issued on 7 June 1960 by the Ministry, the branch was reorganised on 7 July 1960 as the North Caucasus Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (SKNIIF)—no longer directly subordinate to VNIIF.75 The reasons for the change in status of the new facility have been lost in the mists of time. The authorities speedily allocated buildings and territory to SKNIIF which had formerly belonged to a local branch of the Institute of Fibre Crops.76 For reasons of secrecy it was given the postal address P.O. Box 39 but was in fact located just to the west of Krasnodar. The director of SKNIIF from 1960 to 1986 was Evgenii Dmitrievich Rudnev. Little has been published concerning this individual although a strong indicator of his political reliability is evidenced by the fact that in 1953 he had been appointed as Director of the Maxim Gorky State Farm (Sovkhoz) Sad-Gigant (literally “Giant-­ Orchard”) which was focused on production of fruit and based in the Slavianskii district of Krasnodar.77 In 1986 Mikhail S.  Sokolov was appointed director and he remained in this position until 1998.78 The

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facility, which at its height employed 800 personnel, incorporated three laboratory buildings and occupied an area of 280 hectares, including 240 hectares of arable land used in field experiments. It possessed eight greenhouses and two hothouses. SKNIIF also incorporated three subordinate “reference points” or outstations, based in Kavminvodskii (Stavropol’region), North Kuban’ and Slavyanskii.79 One of the key areas in which SKNIIF was active was in the development of a range of highly innovative sampling laboratories and devices for measuring and identifying phytopathogenic spores (presumably putative BW agents) which were being tested in aerobiological experiments. Among the technologies developed by SKNIIF were: a vehicle-based assay-selector of infectious material (PVA-ZM), a PARZ aeroplane-based laboratory, a OZR portable assay-selector and an SES spore-trap and an instruments system for controlling environmental parameters.80 Sergei Stepanovich Sanin (see p.  45), who was formerly based at the facility, undertook his experiments here on the movement in the atmosphere of spores of phytopathogenic fungi. Closed and top-secret experiments are also reported to have been conducted to test the effects of radiation on plants. The institute subsequently played a major role in alleviating the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.81

The Concentration of Veterinary BW Facilities in the Vladimir Region The heart of the Ministry of Agriculture’s new anti-livestock biological weapons programme, principally focused on viral pathogens, was located in the Vladimir oblast’ to the north-east of Moscow. Two of its key R&D facilities and its most significant BW mobilisation production plant were based in this region. The All-Union Scientific-Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute (VNIYaI) was established on 20 August 1958  in the settlement of Yur’evets, located some 10 km to the south-west of Vladimir (see Fig. 3.5). It was created on the basis of existing state farms and scientific units focused on FMD. Immediately upon its creation, VNIYaI began collecting FMD virus strains from across the USSR and soon had amassed a holding of more than 2500 strains. Three of these were selected for use in the preparation of FMD vaccines and production of the latter was begun at the site in the mid-1960s.82 VNIYaI eventually occupied an 11.6-hectare area at Yur’evets in conjunction with the Experimental Factory

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Fig. 3.5  View of All‑Union Scientific‑Research Foot‑and‑Mouth Disease Institute  (VNIYaI),  Yur’evets, Vladimir oblast’. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat which was created on 18 December 1985 by Order No. 7-25 of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture (see p. 55).83 VNIYaI is reported to have researched and developed a range of anti-­livestock weapons including African swine fever (ASF) virus, foot-and-­mouth disease virus, rinderpest virus and so on.84 Interestingly, as was the case at SANIIF, a bunkered facility is located on site which is reported to have been designed for use as a bomb shelter in the event of a US attack during the Cold War.85 In November 1960, Major General Laktionov (see p. 38), a virologist who was at this time in overall charge of the Ekologiya programme, was appointed concurrently as acting director of VNIYaI.86 In 1961, Aleksei Andreevich Syusyukin took up the reins to head the institute. Then from March 1963 through to 22 April 1981, Vladislav Petrovich Onufriev served as director. He was an expert in FMD and had previously served as director in Dushanbe of the Tajikistan Scientific-Research Veterinary Institute.87 Upon his appointment, Onufriev made a prominent display of

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his party loyalty and was elected a member of the CPSU Bureau at the facility and then in 1964 became a Candidate Member of the Vladimir Oblast’ Committee of the CPSU. From 1966 through to 1980 he served as a Full Member of the Committee. In 1981, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Burdov, who had completed his doctoral dissertation at Gvardeiskii on the African horse sickness (AHS) virus, was appointed director. In the same year he was also made head of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s new Brazzaville Veterinary Laboratory in the Republic of the Congo, at this time a Marxist-Leninist socialist state (see p. 56).88 Burdov was one of the Ekologiya programme’s most trusted scientists having previously served as a head of a department within GUNIiEPU’s central apparatus. After his stint in Africa, Burdov continued to serve as VNIYaI director until 1992.89 Another of GUNIiEPU’s veterinary facilities which in 1963 took up permanent residency in Vol’ginskii in the Vladimir region was the aforementioned VNIIVViM which had a lead role in the Soviet anti-livestock BW programme. It was transferred to Vol’ginskii from its initial base on the Znamenskoe-Sadki estate to the south-west of Moscow and eventually came to embrace a production area of 106,000 m2. Officially, VNIIVViM was charged with the elaboration of means and methods of defence against extremely dangerous, exotic and anthropozoonotic farm livestock infections (i.e. those transmitted from animals to humans).90 However, in reality it remained one of the most closed and secretive of the Ministry of Agriculture’s BW facilities with personnel being unable to publish the results of their scientific research.91 Once more the research priority was on viruses and the technology for their cultivation. In 1969, GUNIiEPU issued Order No. XI-36-72 regarding the creation within VNIIVViM of a cell culture collection used in the cultivation of pathogenic viruses and which formed a vital resource for its future research programme.92 Research at the site is reported to have focused on studies of African swine fever (ASF) virus and “horse fever” virus (see the description of work on the African horse sickness virus in Chap. 6) as the basis of anti-livestock biological weapons.93 One senior scientist reports he was engaged in work at the facility on avian viruses and aerobiology.94 An agent which was also the subject of extensive studies at VNIIVViM was Bacillus anthracis (the causal agent of anthrax) and a new live lyophilised spore vaccine based on strain No. 55-VNIIVViM was developed by the institute in 1983. The scientists leading this work were Bakulov (the institute’s Director—see p. 42), Vasilii Vital’evich Seliverstov

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and V.A. Gavrilov.95 Industrial production of the new anthrax vaccine was subsequently established within VNIIVViM’s extensive manufacturing facilities.96 Work then continued on developing improved production technologies, including production in suspension culture, and a number of trials using fermenters with 5, 63, 250, 630 and 1000 litres were carried out.97 As at VNIIF, another major strand of research in Vol’ginskii concerned aerosol vaccination and jet generators for producing aerosols. During the 1970s, Professor Nikolai Alekseevich Lagutkin, who headed up a laboratory at VNIIVViM, led work in this area. As discussed earlier, such technology was clearly dual-use in nature and could be employed for civil and/ or military applications. In parallel with the anti-crop facilities, the institute also pursued research on the impact of radiation damage on agricultural livestock and reducing the transition of radionuclides in the food chain.98

The Gvardeiskii Experimental Proving Ground: Biological Warfare on the Kazakh Steppe One of the most secretive of the GUNIiEPU facilities was the major complex located on a 19-hectare site at Gvardeiskii settlement in Kazakhstan. Initially known as the Dzhambul’ Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (DNISKhI), it was subsequently renamed as the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (NISKhI). The institute was created on the basis of two pre-existing facilities, a Scientific-Research Veterinary Laboratory belonging to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture and a Scientific-­ Experimental Station belonging to the All-Union Plant Protection Institute.99 Construction of the buildings and laboratories at NISKhI was mainly completed during the period 1960–1961.100 The facility also embraced the Experimental Proving Ground No. 7 for testing putative anti-crop and anti-livestock agents, originally established in 1956 (see pp. 33–34). The institute was located within a military base and its relationship with General A.D. Gerasimenko, the commander, was a complicated one. In the early period, NISKhI is reported to have belonged to the unit but to have had independent recourse to financial, material and technical supplies. The military unit rendered organisational assistance to the institute but played no role with regard to the research activity underway there.101

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In order to maintain secrecy concerning the location of the new institute it was referred to only as Post Office Box 46 (Pochtovyi yashchik 46 or P/Ya 46).102 It was necessary to pass through three security posts to reach the territory of the institute.103 All the production facilities, buildings and ancillary units at Gvardeiskii were protected by two barbed-wire fences. Armed military personnel were posted at the entrances and additional militia units stationed at intervals to maintain security at the site. One newly arriving staff member in 1960 reports that “Gvardeiskii was a military settlement of a closed type. A checkpoint system was in place. So, at first, I was not allowed to enter. The officer from the checkpoint telephoned the institute and one of its representatives came and together we travelled to the institute which was situated close by, about 500 metres away.”104 NISKhI’s experimental testing ground appears to have been located in the nearby Karoi valley. Colonel Khanduev, the deputy scientific director, reports that he made twice-weekly visits to site No. 4, located in the valley, where he supervised the institute’s testing programme.105 As a quid pro quo for the use of the area, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture is reported to have undertaken responsibility for cultivation of crops in the valley and agreed to supply experimental animals to the military for their own battlefield trials.106 From its very inception, Gvardeiskii was unique among the facilities in GUNIiEPU’s network in that it embraced components of both the plant and animal BW strands (see Fig.  3.6). It was sub-divided into so-called Sector-V (Veterinary) and Sector-R (crops). Presumably, it was considered necessary to have specialists in both disciplines present on site for the testing which was conducted on the anti-crop and anti-livestock agents. There may also have possibly been a desire to promote inter-disciplinary collaboration between the two strands. Even in the early phase of NISKhI’s existence, the anti-crop component appears to have been fairly substantive in scale (see Fig. 3.7). The institute maintained a separate plant sciences section which was led by V.G. Zheryagin, who was also one of the deputy scientific directors at the facility. Critically, he also served on the Plant Section of the secret Scientific-Technical Council which coordinated the Soviet anti-crop programme (see pp. 37–38). The heads of the anti-crop laboratories at Gvardeiskii during this early period were G.V.  Turov, I.I.  Miusov, M.N.  Vasetskaya, G.N.  Kulikova and R.Kh. Akhmerov.107 NISKhI’s anti-crop BW programme underwent a major expansion in the 1970s and 1980s (see pp. 84–85).

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Fig. 3.6  View of Soviet-era placards on display at the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute—one depicting NISKhI, with stylized images of a horse and a leaf symbolizing the twin activities of animal and plant science, another placard celebrating the Achievements of Science for Field and Farm, a slogan popularized by Academician Pavel Pavlovich Lobanov, President of the V.I.  Lenin All-Union Academy of Sciences (1956–1961 and 1965–1978), Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Zhambul’ oblast’, Kazakhstan, 8 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

The first director of the facility was Ruben Ivanovich Madatov, who since September 1957 had headed up the Scientific-Research Veterinary Laboratory, on the basis of which NISKhI had been created.108 Madatov appears to have been very much a temporary appointment, with Colonel Stepan Trofimovich Ryagin, replacing him as director in the beginning of 1960. In 1964 when the facility had come fully on stream, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Burdov was appointed director. Later directors were Aleksandr Semenovich Grinin (1972), Fedor Petrovich Kurchenko (1977) and Professor Anatolii Alekseevich Gusev (1978)—the latter a specialist in FMD vaccines.109 Gusev remained in post until the collapse of the USSR in December 1991. During the early 1960s, NISKhI began a major recruitment drive which included the selection of the most academically gifted students

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Fig. 3.7  View of greenhouse facility on site at Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Zhambul’ oblast’, Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

graduating from local universities and Central Asian agricultural colleges.110 Among them was Valentin Luk’yanovich Zaitsev, a talented young virologist who had just graduated from the Faculty of Biology at the Kazakhstan State University (Almaty). By January 1964, 285 personnel were employed within the 14 departments located within NISKhI’s veterinary zone. Eventually, the Gvardeiskii complex came to incorporate five anti-livestock laboratories working on a range of viral diseases including Bluetongue, sheeppox, African swine fever, rinderpest (cattle plague), foot-and-mouth disease, Newcastle disease, Aujeszky’s disease and African horse sickness.111 The laboratories incorporated approximately 50 high-­ containment glove boxes some of which operated to the highest levels of protection. Each laboratory possessed its own dedicated vivarium and the range of experimental animals held at the site was quite extraordinary including cattle, horses, camels, Saiga antelope, donkeys, yaks, pigs, poultry, rabbits, guinea pigs and white mice. A collection of 150 anti-livestock viral strains collected over more than 30 years was established at

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NISKhI. The institute also incorporated substantive production capability and downstream processing facilities, including a number of freeze dryers with 8500 vial capacities (see Fig. 3.8). One small laboratory alone was reported to be able to produce 14 litres of sheeppox virus-containing suspension during a 7–12 day cycle. The facility employed three specialists in aerobiology who conducted large-scale experiments with aerosol vaccines in hermetically sealed buildings.112 The settlement possessed its own well-stocked food shops and grocery stores, bookshops, clothing and general shops, and large public baths. In the summer a small, but deep, open-air pool was made available for use. Personnel at the facility are reported to have worked extremely long hours without breaks at the weekend or for taking a vacation. However, staff had a higher rate of pay including hardship and danger allowances and were provided with financial bonuses for meeting their research and production targets. In addition, their laboratories were very well equipped and the researchers had access to the full range of reagents, materials and special clothing for work conducted in high-containment laboratories with dangerous organisms.113

Fig. 3.8  View of a centrifugal freeze dryer manufactured by Edwards High Vacuum Ltd. (Crawley, UK)—part of the historical large-scale installation of the latest Western equipment at NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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Despite the highly favourable situation with regard to scarce foodstuffs and consumer items, and the enhanced salaries, there appear to have been severe problems with retaining scientific staff within the Ekologiya network, especially in facilities, such as that at Gvardeiskii, which were based at remote locations. Khanduev reports that in the mid-1960s, NISKhI lost highly trained scientists, at both Candidate of Sciences and Doctor of Sciences level, to Moscow-based institutes. The latter had become aware of the high-calibre staff working at the facility and had lured them away with the highly attractive offer of apartments in the capital city of Moscow.114 A newly arriving staff member at NISKhI noted that the climate there was hot, windy and dusty and reported that “it was very difficult for me because of the climate difference compared with my homeland of Lake Issyk-Kul. In the new location it was very hot, up to 40–45 degrees centigrade. Sometimes I wanted to go home.”115

An Invisible Network: Visiting Western Plant Pathology and Veterinary Specialists Are Unaware of the Existence of the New Agricultural BW Facilities A number of individual Western specialists focused on plant pathology and veterinary science visited the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is notable that in their official reports of their visits none of the GUNIiEPU facilities are referred to at all. During the period from 15 May through to 28 July 1961, for example, Waldemar E. Sackston, professor of plant pathology at Macdonald College of McGill University, visited plant pathology institutes in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Krasnodar and Uzbekistan. Sackston, a Russian speaker, published a full overview of his visit and the state of plant pathology in the USSR but was completely unaware of the new phytopathology BW facilities which by this time were fully up-and-running.116 A delegation of US veterinary researchers visited the USSR from 24 July through to 26 August 1958, precisely at the time the Soviet authorities were creating the anti-crop and anti-livestock BW network.117 The delegation was one of six which the US Department of Agriculture despatched to the USSR that year and arranged under an agreement between the two countries encompassing a programme of exchanges in cultural, technical and educational fields. The US veterinarians visited facilities in

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Moscow, Leningrad, Khar’kov, Alma-Ata, Frunze and Georgia, but their subsequent report makes no mention of the decree establishing the new veterinary BW network.118 It may even be the case that the civil scientists hosting the Western visitors were themselves not aware of the new Soviet military agricultural programme. While the US visitors to the USSR did not detect any trace of the new agricultural BW programme there was some evidence of heightened Soviet military interest in this area. One member of the 1958 US veterinary delegation was Cornelius “Don” Van Houweling. During the Second World War he had served in the Army Veterinary Corps and at the time of the Soviet visit was an Assistant Administrator in the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. In a presentation in November 1958 to the Association of Military Surgeons in Washington, D.C., Van Houweling noted that the Soviet Military-Veterinary Service were pointing to “the threat of atomic weapons and of bacterial agents which might be used by their enemies as presenting new problems for them”.119 In a remarkably prescient passage in his presentation, Van Houweling notes the comments of Major General A.M. Penionzhko in the Soviet journal Veterinariya that “the problems of the Military-Veterinary Service and the veterinary medicine of the country necessitates tightening of the contacts between the two services in scientific-­research and scientific-practical activities”.120 This new emphasis on military-civil cooperation was to find full expression with the creation of the new GUNIiEPU network. Interestingly, there was an additional visit by US veterinary scientists to the USSR from 15 May through to 13 June 1975. Again, there appears to be no awareness of the existence of the Ekologiya network by the US specialists. However, on this occasion their Soviet hosts did reveal that an FMD institute was located “in or near Vladimir”—presumably they were referring to VNIYaI—but no opportunity was provided to view the facility.121 In their final meeting at the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, the US visitors stated that they felt that they had observed a broad cross-section of Soviet veterinary medicine. However, unbeknown to them, like the visitors nearly two decades previously, they had still been denied access to the ministry’s most advanced R&D and manufacturing facilities.

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Numbers Employed in the Ministry of Agriculture’s BW Programme US officials are reported to have estimated that 10,000 scientists and technicians were employed within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW network.122 In his analysis of the Soviet programme Leitenberg states that according to Alibek “some 10,000 employees at all levels of technical competence—including support personnel” were employed by Minsel’khoz.123 In May 2000, Alibek stated before the House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services’ Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism that “the Ministry of Agriculture, to develop agricultural biological weapons had about 10,000 (individuals employed)”.124 The agricultural effort therefore represented a significant proportion of the 40,000–65,000 individuals estimated by Leitenberg and Zilinskas to have been employed in the Soviet offensive programme as a whole.125 It is worth positing these estimated figures against the actual numbers reported to have been employed at individual facilities within the Minsel’khoz system. On 1 January 1959 for example, VNIIF is reported to have comprised 7 laboratories employing 349 personnel including 5 Doctors of Science and 33 Candidates of Science. By 1970 more than 1000 personnel were employed within 15 departments and laboratories at VNIIF. Of these 20 were Doctors of Science and more than 350 were Candidates of Science.126 Meanwhile, VNIIF’s Georgian branch based in Kobuleti employed around 160–170 personnel.127 VNIIF’s Central Russian branch in Novaya Zhizn’ (Tambov oblast’) employed 150 personnel including 50 scientific staff. Meanwhile, the Far-Eastern Branch of VNIIF employed around 100 personnel and its Estonian Branch around 10 staff members.128 During the Soviet period, the North Caucasus Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (SKNIIF) is reported to have employed 800 personnel. Significant numbers of personnel are reported also within the anti-­ animal facilities. By January 1964 for example, 285 personnel were employed across 14 departments at the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan).129 Later, during the 1970s, the construction of new anti-crop laboratories swelled the number of personnel to 500.130 Large numbers of personnel were also employed within production. By 1 January 1979, for example, the Pokrov biologics factory (Pokrovskii zavod biopreparatov) in Vol’ginskii employed approximately 1200 personnel, 123 of whom had higher veterinary, biological or medical

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education. Some 321 personnel were employed in the production buildings alone.131 Another production plant in the Vladimir area, VNIYaI’s Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat, is also reported to have employed 260 personnel within the main production area.132 The Almaty Biologics Combine employed around 1000 personnel. Meanwhile, VNIYaI’s Caucasus Branch in Yerevan employed around 200 personnel.133 A second Central Asian Branch was also established by VNIYaI in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.134 This facility is reported to have employed an additional 150 personnel.135 The actual identified number of personnel employed within the GUNIiEPU system therefore comprises just over 5000 individuals but this figure excludes data relating to the Ministry of Agriculture’s administrative apparatus for the BW programme and major institutions such as the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology (VNIIVViM) and the All-Union Scientific-Research Foot-­ and-­Mouth Disease Institute (VNIYaI) where there is no available data relating to numbers of personnel during the Soviet period. Given that the latter were substantive institutions, then it might reasonably be estimated that each had a staff of around 1000 individuals. So, overall, the estimated numbers employed within GUNIiEPU ranges from somewhere over 7000 to around 10,000. This is a highly significant figure. For, according to Leitenberg and Zilinskas there were only 8000 people involved in the US BW programme, 5000 people employed by the Japanese in their endeavour, the British and Canadian BW programme involving probably less than 5000, and the Iraqi programme less than 500.136 It can therefore safely be stated that the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW programme was of global significance since it clearly eclipses the numbers employed in historic BW programmes pursued by other countries.

The Targeting of China by the Ekologiya Programme? In his penetrating analysis, Zilinskas argues that in the event of a protracted nuclear war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, Soviet anti-crop and anti-animal biological weapons would have been employed against the survivors of nuclear exchanges. He notes that the dispersal, for example, of foot-and-mouth disease or African swine fever virus would have had a horrific impact on surviving American and European livestock. Moreover, a range of bacterial and fungal pathogens could have been employed to

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destroy wheat, barley, maize, rye, rice and other crops. In addition, he contends “that all NATO countries would have been poorly prepared to defend themselves against an onslaught of weapons bearing these pathogens, even if nuclear weapons had not been used”.137 Zilinskas examines also the thesis that the Soviet biological weapons programme may have been directed, partially at least, towards China. He notes that in interviews conducted by himself and Leitenberg, a significant proportion of Soviet biological weapon scientists asserted that China would be the target of their work. These assertions appear to be purely speculative based on the premise that given China’s huge population advantage, in case of war the Soviet Union would have been forced to rely on both its nuclear and biological arsenal.138 In his analysis of a Sino-Soviet conventional conflict, Zilinskas argues that “a conventional war with China that went poorly for the Soviets could lead them to use nuclear and/or biological weapons to restore their position and gain the upper hand … the appropriate biological weapon might have been capable of decimating China’s population”.139 There is a range of evidence available to suggest that China may have been at least as important a target as the US for the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW effort. The date of the launch of its programme is in itself suggestive since it coincides with the beginnings of the Sino-Soviet split—the sharp deterioration of relations between the PRC and the Soviet Union. Khrushchev was accused of jettisoning Leninism by Mao and of being guilty of “patriarchal, arbitrary and tyrannical” behaviour. A key trigger in the falling-out was Moscow’s decision in 1959 to withdraw its offer to assist China with the building of an atomic bomb. Then, in July 1960, the Soviet authorities without warning unilaterally withdrew from China all their experts, totalling 1390 personnel and annulled 257 items of scientific and technical cooperation.140 By 1969 the freeze reached its peak and was to continue through to the late 1980s. The USSR was quick to impose economic sanctions and exports to the PRC declined from US $954 million in 1959 to US $230 million in 1962. In 1964, Po I-po, the Chairman of the Chinese State Economic Commission, referred to the abrupt withdrawal of more than Soviet 1300 experts from China and the cancellation of more than 300 major contracts as “like taking the dishes off the table in the middle of the meal”.141 The world was witnessing the beginning of the transformation of a bi-polar Cold War into a tri-polar Cold War.

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The deposal of Nikita Khrushchev in October 1964 and the rise to power of the new Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, did nothing to lessen the increasingly adversarial relationship between the USSR and China. In the period from 1964 through to 1969 there was a major build-up of Soviet combat troops along the Soviet-Sino border. In addition, the Soviet’s deployed the Scaleboard (SS-12) tactical nuclear system, a road-­mobile missile equipped with a 500-kiloton warhead and a 500-mile range to the border. While the Soviets had clear superiority in equipment and weapons, China had a massive advantage with regard to sheer numbers of forces, having deployed 59 divisions along the border—this superiority in troop numbers was the cornerstone of Beijing’s strategy to deter a nuclear attack.142 It was against this background that by the mid-1960s, border skirmishes were occurring with increasing frequency, culminating in March 1969 with a major incident on Zhenbao Island in the Ussuri River with significant numbers of casualties on both sides. This was followed in August 1969 by another violent clash in the Tielieketi area of the Xinjiang region, near the Chinese border with Kazakhstan and close to the Soviet settlement of Zhalanaskol. Soviet troops, using armoured personnel carriers and tanks and supported by two helicopters, ambushed and killed 38 Chinese soldiers.143 While the Soviet military considered China’s nuclear capabilities to be extremely limited and vulnerable to a first strike, there continued to be great concern about the threat posed by its massive conventional forces. According to Arkady Shevchenko, the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to defect to the West, the Politburo “was terrified that the Chinese might make a large-scale intrusion into Soviet territory which China claimed. A nightmare vision of invasion by millions of Chinese made the Soviet leaders frantic … the Chinese with their vast population and deep knowledge and experience of guerrilla warfare, would fight unrelentingly. The Soviet Union could be mired in an endless war.”144 Such an incursion by China could threaten crucial nodes of the Trans-Siberian Railroad as well as key strategic centres in Blagoveshchensk, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. Some Moscow bureaucrats argued that the only defence against such force would be the use of nuclear weapons with some even advocating the deployment of nuclear mines along the border.145 The geographic location of the Soviet Union’s secret GUNIiEPU facilities is also suggestive of at least a partial focus on agricultural targets within China. Two of these were located in Central Asia, near Tashkent in Uzbekistan and near Otar in Kazakhstan. In addition, on 2 December 1959, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture issued Order No. 0115-1074 for

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the creation of the Far-Eastern Branch of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (Primorskii filial Vsesoyuznogo nauchno-­ issledovatel’skogo instituta fitopatologii).146 The facility was created at Kamen’ Rybolov on the shores of Lake Khanka—which traverses the border between Heilongjiang Province, in North-East China and Primorskii krai in Russia. It was headed up by its first director, A.M. Sitnichenko.147 The facility is reported to have been comparable in size to the VNIIF branch in Kobuleti, with a staff of 100 and incorporated four laboratories and its own sub-branch located in Ussuriisk. Very little information is available concerning research programmes conducted within this facility although it appears to have been primarily focused on the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea and cereal rust fungi.148 It is conceivable given the position of the Soviet facility so close to the Chinese border, that, in the event of a major escalation of the Sino-Russo conflict, it would have had a strategic role in facilitating the utilisation of anti-crop agents against Chinese agricultural targets. Certainly, rice blast was one of the major focuses of the Soviet anti-crop programme. Research to develop biological weapons based on this organism was conducted within a secret programme entitled “Rybolov” (literally “Fisherman” although there could also be a reference here to Kamen’ Rybolov). The programme is reported to have been headed up by Aleksei Vladimirovich Kratenko and utilised some 20 or so criteria to assess the suitability of plant pathogens as biological weapons against rice. One of the criteria was the ability of the pathogen to spread disease extremely rapidly in this crop.149 According to one report, VNIIF’s branch was for a period of time initially located on the site of an airfield.150 This may have been the airfield belonging to the 256th Fighter Aviation Regiment which was based in Kamen’ Rybolov until it was disbanded in 1959. Presumably, Chinese military intelligence would have been aware of the construction of the Lake Khanka anti-crop facility and the PLA may have responded with the initiation of its own agricultural BW programmes. It is interesting that, according to official Chinese accounts, the PRC launched a defensive biological warfare programme in 1958, the same year as the creation of the Soviet offensive agricultural BW network.151

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Notes 1. Brown, A., Kaser, M., Smith, G.S., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 119–120. 2. Ibid., p. 400. 3. Materialy po vypolneniyu postanovleniya SM SSSR ot 15 fevralya 1956 g. No. 251163 o razvitii rabot po khimicheskim i biologicheskim sredstvam porazheniya sel’skokhozyaistvennykh rastenii i zhivotnykh, Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE), fond 7486, opis 47, delo 371, pp. 1, 5, cited in Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 72. 4. Fedorov, L.A., Khimicheskoe vooruzhenie—s sobstvennym narodom (tragicheskii rossiiskii opyt), Moscow, 2009, Site of Lev Aleksandrovich Fedorov, http://levfedorov.ru/chemarmament-­7-­3/, Accessed on the 24 November 2020. 5. The text of the decree has never been released but it is referred to in the official scientific archive of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lev Aleksandrovich Fedorov, a leading Russian expert on the Soviet BW programme, cites the decree and it is also referenced in the official histories of several institutes which formerly formed part of the Soviet agricultural BW programme. See Nauchnyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi akademii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh nauk, http://isaran.ru/?=ru/fund&guid=C16E22C1-­CB84-­4BE5-­AEB0-­ FBBB8DBF3A9A&ida=42, Accessed on the 17 November 2020; Fedorov, L., Khronika pamyatnykh dat “khimicheskoi” zhizni TsK KPSS, Posev, No. 1, 1999; Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na kurtom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(5), May 2013, p.  6, http:// rsn-­msk.ru/files/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 17 November 2020; and Otchet o rabote, prodelannoi v FGBU “federal’nyi tsentr okhrany zdorov’ya zhivotnykh” (FGBU “VNIIZZh”) v oblasti veterinarnogo nadzora za 1 kvartal 2013 goda, https://www.arriah.ru/main/ about/report, Accessed on the 17 November 2020. 6. The full text of the Order is not available. However, an archival extract of the order, relating to its instructions regarding the creation of the AllUnion Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology, the lead anti-crop facility, has been released. See Matskevich, V., O meropriyatnykh po usileniyu nauchno-issledovatel’skikh rabot v oblasti mikrobiologii, Order No. 233-13, USSR Ministry of Agriculture, 20 August 1958, http://www. vniif.ru/docs/, Accessed 12 November 2020. The order is also referred to in Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na kurtom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(5), May 2013, p.  6, http://rsn-­msk.ru/ files/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 17 November 2020.

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7. The Ministry of Agriculture was created in 1953 with its headquarters based at Orlikov Pereulok, 1/11, 107139 Moscow. The Ministry was replaced by the All-Union State Agro-Industrial Committee (Gosudarstvennyi agropromyshlennyi komitet or Gosagroprom) in November 1985. Gosagroprom’s headquarters remained based at Orlikov Pereulok. Directory of Soviet Officials: National Organizations, A Reference Aid, CIA National Foreign Assessment Center, CR81-11343, May 1981, pp. 32–33; Directory of Soviet Officials: National Organizations, A Reference Aid, CIA Directorate of Intelligence, LDA87-1290, June 1987, p. 156. 8. Domaradskij, I., Orent, W., Biowarrior: Inside the Soviet/Russian Biological War Machine, Prometheus Books, New York, 2003, p. 157. 9. This Directorate is listed by Veterinariya and the CIA as the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-Production Establishments under the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. This organisation is presumably the same as that referred to by Alibek as the Main Directorate for Scientific and Production Enterprises. Rakhmanin, P.P., K 100-letiyu agrobiologicheskoi promyshlennosti Rossii, Veterinariya, No. 8, 1996, p. 10; Directory of Soviet Officials, May 1981, pp. 32–33; Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard: The True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Programme in the World—Told From the Inside by the Man Who Ran It, Hutchinson, London, 1999, pp. 37–38. 10. Pestitsidy i khimicheskaya voina, Problemy khimicheskoi bezopasnosti, Union of Chemical Safety, UCS-INFO.210, 18 January 1997. 11. Domaradskij, I.V., Orent, W., Biowarrior, p. 157. 12. Fedorov, L., Khronika pamyatnykh dat “khimicheskoi” zhizni TsK KPSS, Posev, No. 1, 1999. 13. Ibid. 14. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 86. 15. Rimmington, A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon, pp. 181–184. 16. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, pp. 80–81. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Pestitsidy i khimicheskaya voina, Problemy khimicheskoi bezopasnosti, Union of Chemical Safety, UCS-INFO.210, 18 January 1997. 20. Laktionov was responsible to the USSR Minister of Agriculture, V.V.  Matskevich. Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life, Unpublished manuscript, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 25 February 2000. 21. Makarov, V., 8 Fevralya—den’ rossiiskoi nauki, Metamorfozy vremeni: ot kustarnogo proshlogo k mezhdunarodnomu priznaniyu, Veterinariya i zhizn’, No. 2(21), February 2019, p.  4, http://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­

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docs/ru/news/smi/veterinarylife/veterinarylife-­21-­2018.pdf, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 22. Veterinariya v period velikoi otechestvennoi voiny (iyun’ 1941—mai 1945 g.), https://veterinarua.ru/stati-­i-­issledovaniya/1005-­veterinariya-­ v-­period-­velikoj-­otechestvennoj-­vojny-­iyun-­1941-­g-­maj-­1945-­g.html, Accessed on the 11 October 2019. 23. Laktionov, Adrian Mitrofanovich (1905–1991), https://www.mke.su/ doc/LAKTIONOV%20AM.html, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 24. Khanduev, Ts.Ts, My Life. 25. Syurin, Vasilii Nikolaevich, Vikepediya, https://ru.wikipedia.org, Accessed on the 8 April 2019. 26. Directory of Soviet Officials: National Organizations, May 1981, pp.  32–33; Directory of Soviet Officials: National Organizations, A Reference Aid, CIA Directorate of Intelligence, CR82-14044, August 1982, p. 28; and Directory of Soviet Officials: National Organizations, A Reference Aid, CIA Directorate of Intelligence, CR84-13894, November 1984, p. 29. 27. Gavrilov, V.A., Klyuev, V.G., Safonov, G.A. (Eds.), Zashchishaya zhivotnykh i cheloveka: Pokrovskomu zavodu biopreparatov tridtsat’ let, Orekhovo-­ Zuevo, 1999, p. 19. 28. Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 29. Rimmington. A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon, p. 182. 30. Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 31. Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 32. The latter held his military rank until the autumn of 1965 when he retired from the Soviet army and left Gvardeiskii to go and live and work in Frunze, Kyrgyzstan. See My Life. 33. Starchak, A.A., Usad’ba znamenskoe-sadki, https://um.mos.ru/places/ usadba_znamenskoe_sadki/, Accessed on the 28 March 2019. 34. Federal’nyi issledovatel’skii tsentr virusologii i mikrobiologii, Vikepediya, https://ru.wikipedia.org, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 35. Warrick, J., Inside the Old Homes of Biowarfare, The Washington Post, 17 June 2002, carried in The Editor, The Guardian, 29 June 2002, p. 14. 36. Bakulov Igor’ Alekseevich (1925–2010), Administratsiya Vladimirskoi oblasti: Ofitsial’nyi Internet-portal, https://avo.ru/bakulov-­igor-­ alekseevic, Accessed on the 28 February 2020. 37. Ibid. 38. VNIIF was created in accordance with Order No. 233-13 issued on the 20 August 1958 by Vladimir Vladimirovich Matskevich, the USSR Minister of Agriculture. See Matskevich, V., O meropriyatnykh po usileniyu nauchno-­ issledovatel’skikh rabot v oblasti mikrobiologii, Order No. 233-13, USSR Ministry of Agriculture, 20 August 1958, http://www.

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vniif.ru/docs/, Accessed 12 November 2020; Stranitsy istorii, AllRussian ­ Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, http://www. vniif.ru/vniif/history/, Accessed on the 28 March 2019; VNII fitopatologii—60 let!, Kartofel’naya Sistema, 27 August 2018, https://www. google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja &uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi6g9HvqqXhAhXCRBUIHZBdCq0QFjADeg QIBxAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.potatosystem.r u%2Fvnii-­ fitopatologii-­60-­let%2F&usg=AOvVaw1UAp8NPB7D7daCmE7iectz, Accessed on the 28 March 2019; Sanin, S.S., 50 let na strazhe prodovol’stvennoi bezopasnosti strany, Zashchita i kvarantin rastenii, No. 8, 2008, p. 3. 39. Usad’ba “Znamenskoe-Sadki”, https://places.moscow/places/usadba_ znamenskoe-­sadki/usadba_znamenskoe-­sadki.html, Accessed on the 28 March 2019. 40. Tverskoi, Dmitrii Lukich, Vikipediya, https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Tverskoi, Accessed on the 27 September 2019. 41. Bushnell, W., Roelfs, A.P., (Eds.), The Cereal Rusts: Volume 1, Origins, Specificity, Structure, and Physiology, Academic Press, Inc., Orlando, 1984, pp. 26–27. 42. A useful overview of Yachevsky’s career is provided by Berestetskaya, L.I., All-Union Institute of Plant Protection, St Petersburg, 2003, 12 pp., a summary of which is provided at http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/people/0011588_.htm, Accessed on the 11 October 2019. 43. Stranitsy istorii, Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii, http://www.vniif.ru/vniif/history/, Accessed on the 18 September 2019. 44. Zaleski, E., Kozlowski, J.P., Wienert, H., Davies, R.W., Berry, M.J., Amann, R., Science Policy in the USSR, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1969, p.  258; Fortescue, S., Science Policy in the Soviet Union, Routledge, London, 1990, p. 41. 45. Solari, G., Wind Science and Engineering: Origins, Developments, Fundamentals and Advancements, Springer, Cham, 2019, p. 593. 46. Gregory, P.H., Spores in Air, Annual Review of Phytopathology, Vol. 15, 1977, pp.  1–11, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/ annurev.py.15.090177.000245, Accessed on the 24 September 2019. 47. Lacey, J., Lacey, M.E., Bruce, D.L., Philip Herries Gregory 1907–1986: Pioneer Aerobiologist, Versatile Mycologist, Annual Review of Phytopathology, Vol. 35, 1997, p.  5, https://www.annualreviews.org/ doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.phyto.35.1.1, Accessed on the 20 September 2019. 48. Solari, G., Wind Science and Engineering, p. 593.

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49. Hirst, J.M., Aerobiology at Rothamsted, Grana, Vol. 33, p. 66, https:// www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00173139409427833, Accessed on the 24 September 2019. 50. Hirst, J.M., Philip Herries Gregory. 24 July 1907–9 February 1986, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 35, March, 1990, p.  159, https://www.jstor.org/stable/769977?read-­ now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents, Accessed on the 24 September 2019. 51. Annual Review of Phytopathology, Vol. 15, 1977, p. 5. 52. Hirst, J.M., Philip Herries Gregory, p. 165. 53. Aircraft in Agriculture 1958–1963: A List of Selected References, Library List No. 65, Sup. 1, National Agricultural Library, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., June 1965, https:// archive.org/stream/aircraftinagricu651corr/aircraftinagricu651corr_ djvu.txt, Accessed on the 26 September 2019. 54. Stranitsy istorii, Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii, http://www.vniif.ru/vniif/history/, Accessed on the 18 September 2019. 55. Istoriya, Administratsiya gorodskogo poseleniya Bol’shie Vyazemy, https://bvyazemy.ru/history/, Accessed on the 29 March 2019. 56. Rimmington, A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon, p. 36. 57. Stranitsy istorii, Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii, http://www.vniif.ru/vniif/history/, Accessed on the 18 September 2019. 58. Mityushev, Zapiski obyknovennogo cheloveka, http://www.mybio.ru/ zapiski/text, Accessed on the 17 July 2020, p. 496. 59. Lebedev Vladimir Borisovich, Entsiklopediya izbestnye uchenye, https:// www.famous-­scientists.ru/2151/, Accessed on the 16 October 2019. 60. Fedorov reports on work being pursued on anti-crop BW at VNIIZR’s Central Asian Branch in Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 71. The creation of SANIIF on the basis of the branch is reported by former senior SANIIF scientist, London, 31 September 2004. 61. Rufford, N., The West’s secret weapon to win the opium war, The Sunday Times, 28 June, 1998. 62. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 63. Information provided by Professor Abdukarimov Abdusattor, Director, to Dr Anthony Rimmington (University of Birmingham), Uzbek Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Genetics, Tashkent, 20 September 1996. 64. Ibid.

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65. Information provided by Professor Abdukarimov Abdusattor, Director, to Dr Anthony Rimmington (University of Birmingham), Uzbek Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Genetics, Tashkent, 11 December 2002. 66. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 67. Rufford, N., The West’s secret weapon to win the opium war. 68. Information provided by former Soviet anti-crop scientist, 2002. 69. Rufford, N., The West’s secret weapon to win the opium war. 70. Information provided by Professor Abdukarimov Abdusattor, Director, to Dr Anthony Rimmington (University of Birmingham), Uzbek Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Genetics, Tashkent, 20 September 1996. 71. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 72. Interview with plant scientists, Institute of Genetics and Experimental Plant Biology, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 19 May 2003. 73. Interview with senior scientist at the Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 20 May 2003. 74. Pegg, G.F., Brady, B.L., Verticillium Wilts, CABA Publishing, Wallingford, Oxon, 2002, pp. 234–235. 75. Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut biologicheskoi zashchity rastenii, www.vniibzr.ru › institute, Accessed on the 19 September 2019. 76. Bokancha, I., Proryvnye tekhnologii v oblasti zashchity rastenii, Rossiiskii agrarnyi portal, https://agroportal-­ziz.ru/articles/proryvnye-­tehno logii-­v-­oblasti-­zashchity-­rasteniy, Accessed on the 19 September 2019. 77. AO Sad Gigant, http://www.sadgigant.ru/about/history, Accessed on the 16 October 2019. 78. Nadykta, V.D., Golovnomu institutu po biologicheskoi zashchite rastenii—50 let!, Zashchita i karantin rastenii, 2010, https://cyberleninka. ru/article/n/golovnomu-­i nstitutu-­p o-­b iologicheskoy-­z aschite-­ rasteniy-­50-­let, Accessed on the 16 October 2019. 79. VNIIBZR home page, http://www.biozashchita.newmail.ru/html/ home.htm, 23 May 2000. 80. Ibid. 81. Zloveshchaya “zapretka”, No. 8, April, 2000, http://www.chrigaz.nm. ru/82000/61.htm. 82. Westerdahl, K., Building and Measuring Confidence: The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and Vaccine Production in Russia, Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI-R-0189-SE, December 2001, Appendix 1, pp. 5–6.

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83. Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na krutom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2 (5), May 2013, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/ news/smi/veterinary/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 84. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 301. Information provided by the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, confirms that the facility focused on the development of ­foot-­and-­mouth disease as an anti-crop weapon. See Miller, J., Long Island lab may do studies of bioterrorism, The New York Times, 22 September 1999. 85. The bunker is reported to have been “a legacy of the Cold War” and was designed for use as a bomb shelter in the event of any attack on the facility. 86. A.A.  Dorofeev was appointed as his Deputy Scientific Director. See Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na krutom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2 (5), May 2013, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/ news/smi/veterinary/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 87. Pamyati Onufrieva Vladislava Petrovicha (1925–1988 gg.) (k 90-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya), p. 4 in Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(13), May 2015, p.  4, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/news/smi/veterinary/ veterinary-­13-­2015.pdf., Accessed on the 30 May 2019. 88. Professoru Burdovu Aleksandru Nikolaevichu—90 let, 20 September 2016, http://www.arriah.ru/en/node/ 4633, Accessed on the 9 March 2020. 89. Rakhmanov, A.M., Glushko, B.A., Voennoe pokolenie sotrudnikov vsesoyuznogo nauchno-issledovatel’skogo yashchurnogo instituta— FGBU “Federal’nyi tsentr okhrany zdorov’ya zhivotnykh” (k 70-letiyu Pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine), p. 8 in Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(13), May 2015, p.  4, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/ news/smi/veterinary/veterinary-­13-­2015.pdf., Accessed on the 30 May 2019. 90. Vserossiiskii NII veterinarnoi virusologii i mikrobiologii, http://avo.ru/ structure/dvs/present_vo/russian/3economics/ manufactures/14_vniivm/vniiv…, carried on the 26 March 2002. 91. Information provided during interview with former GUNIiEPU veterinary scientist, 10 August 1994. 92. Kollektsiya kul’tur kletok i muzei kletochnykh stammov, https://ficvim. ru/services/, Accessed on the 13 March 2020. 93. In 1994 a scientist formerly based at the institute confirmed that VNIIVViM was a closed institute and that its personnel were unable to publish the results of their scientific research. Information on BW agents developed at VNIIVViM is provided by Professor Mamadaliev, Director

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of the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii, Kazakstan, quoted in The New York Times, 22 September 1999. 94. Interview with senior NISKhI scientist, Oxford, 6 September 2004. 95. Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., Immunoprofilaktika sibirskoi yazy zhivotnykh, Vestnik sel’sko-khozyaistvennykh nauki, Vol. 419, Number 8, 1991, p. 129. 96. Among the products developed by VNIIVViM in the period through to 1997 were: a live-spore freeze-dried anthrax vaccine, a live-spore liquid anthrax vaccine, a live-spore liquid concentrated anthrax vaccine, an ­associated vaccine against anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease, and an associated vaccine against anthrax and clostridioses in sheep. Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., Immunoprofilaktika sibirskoi yazy zhivotnykh, Vestnik sel’sko-­khozyaistvennykh nauki, Volume 419, Number 8, 1991, p. 130; Ipatenko, N.G., Tatarintsev, N.T., Nanichev, A.A., Sedov, V.A., Gushchin, V.N., Revazov, A.L., Gutiev, A.V., Gutiev, A.N., Bakhtarov, S.I., Krutskikh, V.A., Kiselev, Yu.T., Muryi, A.A., Grigorov, V.I., Rezul’taty primeneniya vaktsiny protiv sibirskoi yazvy iz shtamma 55, Veterinariya, No. 8, August 1989, p. 7; and Bakulov, I.A., Vedernikov, V.A., Kharkevich, A.A., Gavrilov, V.A., Seliverstov, V.V., Further improvement of system of measures for prophylaxis and control of anthrax in animals, Veterinariya, No. 5, May 1997, pp.  7–11, translated in FBIS Report, Science & Technology, Central Eurasia, Life Sciences, FBISUST-97-021, 1 May 1997. 97. Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., Immunoprofilaktika sibirskoi yazy zhivotnykh, p. 130. 98. O nas, Official VNIIVViM website (date of publication unknown), https://ficvim.ru/about, Accessed on the 7 December 2020. 99. Istoriya, Nauchno-issledovatel’skii institute problem biologicheskoi bezopasnosti, http://www.biosafety.kz, Accessed on the 4 March 2020. 100. NISKhI also appears to have incorporated facilities outside Gvardeiskii. One report refers to Site No. 4 possibly located in the Karoj Valley. See Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 101. The unit’s head of the Political Affairs Division was Colonel P.V. Shamov. See Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 102. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni, unpublished memoirs of former employee at Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute in Gvardeiskii, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 25 February 2000. 103. Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Ye., Yeleukenov, D., Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present and Future, Centre for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper No. 1, Monterey, California, 1999, p. 16. 104. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni.

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105. Ibid. 106. Fedorov, L.A., Khimicheskoe vooruzhenie—voina s sobstvennym narodom (tragicheskii rossiiskii opyt), Moscow, 2009, Site of Lev Aleksandrovich Fedorov, http://levfedorov.ru/chemarmament-­7-­3/, Accessed on the 24 November 2020. 107. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. Another source identifies Zheryagin as a deputy director in 1963. 108. His Deputy was V.A. Demidov, Candidate of Sciences, a microbiologist. See Istoriya, Nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut problem biologicheskoi bezopasnosti, http://www.biosafety.kz, Accessed on the 4 March 2020. 109. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 110. For example, in 1960, a representative from NISKhI visited the Przhevalsk Agricultural College (located in present-day Karakol, Kyrgyzstan) and selected five of the most academically gifted students for transfer to Gvardeiskii. See Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 111. Interview with former senior NISKhI scientist, Ala-Acha, Kyrgyzstan, 12 September 1999. The researcher was employed at the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii, Kazakstan) from 1960 to 1985. 112. The institute also incorporated a facility for chlorine treatment of all waste released from the laboratories, vivariums and production areas. Information provided during tour of anti-livestock laboratories to author, Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii settlement, Kazakstan, 13 September 1999. 113. Ibid. 114. Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 115. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 116. Sackston, W.E., Plant Pathology in the USSR, Canadian Plant Disease Survey, Vol. 42, No. 3, June 1962, pp. 167–183, https://phytopath.ca/ wp-­content/uploads/2014/10/cpds-­archive/vol42/CPDS_Vol_42_ No_3_(167–183)1962.pdf, Accessed on the 3 April 2019. 117. Veterinary Science in the Soviet Union: Report of a Technical Study Group, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, October 1959, https://archive.org/stream/ CAT88710746/CAT88710746_djvu.txt, Accessed on the 3 April 2019. 118. Ibid. 119. Van Houweling, C.D., Veterinary Medicine in the USSR, Military Medicine, Vol. 124, No. 8, August 1959, pp.  580–583, https://doi. org/10.1093/milmed/124.8.580, Accessed on the 10 June 1019. 120. Ibid. 121. US Veterinary Scientist Team Visit to USSR, May 15 to June 13, 1975, 86 pp., Digitized copy held at Cornell University.

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122. Warwick, J., Russia’s poorly guarded past, The Washington Post, 17 June 2002, p. A01, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/06/17/russias-­poorly-­guarded-­past/603c3de9-­22f5-­493f-­ be5b-­fc31eb938a9d/?utm_term=.1ee50df14303, Accessed on the 29 March 2019. 123. Leitenberg, M., State-Level vs. Substate Programs Utilizing AntiPlant and Anti-Animal BW Agents: Is There a Link?, p. 50 in Pate, J., Cameron, G. (Eds.), Agro-Terrorism: What Is the Threat? Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.  November 12–13, 2000, Co-Editors Jason Pate and Gavin Cameron, United States. Department of Energy, 2001, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=3513, Accessed on the 29 March 2019. 124. Statement of Dr Kenneth Alibek, Chief Scientist, Hadron, Inc., Former First Deputy Chief, Biopreparat (USSR), p. 6 in Terrorist Threats to the United States, Hearing Before the Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixth Congress, Second Session, Hearing Held 23 May, 2000, DIANE Publishing, 2000. 125. Leitenberg and Zilinskas state that “the number of individuals who worked in the Soviet BW programme ranged from 40,000 to 65,000, including the Ekologiya programme in the Ministry of Agriculture. We lean towards the higher figure.” See, The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 700. 126. Sanin, S.S., 50-let na strazhe prodovol’stvennoi bezopasnosti strany, Vyazemka informatsionyi byulleten’, November 2010, bvyazemy.ru/ ing/2010/12/v_17.pdf, Accessed on the 29 March 2019. 127. Information provided by senior scientist, Plant Immunity Research Institute. Interview conducted at the Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 128. Meeting with senior scientist from SANIIF, London, 31 September 2004. 129. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 130. Professor Mamadaliev confirmed this figure at a meeting in Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, on 13 September 1999. A lower figure of 400 personnel is indicated by Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 16. 131. Zashchishaya zhivotnykh i cheloveka, p. 19. 132. Poster display at “Russian Biotechnology—An Overview of its Standards & Efficiency & Opportunities of Cooperation with Western Companies”, Workshop organised by Pharmaceutical Worldwide Database, DECHEMA Building, Frankfurt, Germany, 1–2 March 1993. 133. Information provided by Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan, Armenia, 21 September 2002.

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134. Gusev, A.A., Gody stanovleniya i perspektivy nauchno-proizvodstvennoi deyatel’nosti, Veterinariya, No. 8, 1996, p. 31. 135. Information provided by management team of Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan, Armenia, 21 September 2002. 136. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with  Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 700. 137. Zilinskas, R.A., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme and Its Legacy in Today’s Russia, Centre for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction Occasional Paper, No. 11, National Defence University Press, Washington, D.C., July 2016, p. 41. 138. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, with  R.A., Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 307. 139. Zilinskas, R.A., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme and Its Legacy in Today’s Russia, pp. 41–42. 140. Cheng, Chu-yuan, Scientific and Engineering Manpower in Communist China, 1949–1963, National Science Foundation, NSF 65-14, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1965. 141. Ibid. 142. Gerson, M.S., The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict: Deterrence, Escalation, and the Threat of Nuclear War in 1969, CRM D0022974.A2/Final, CAN Analysis & Solutions, November 2010, p.  18, https://www.cna.org/ CNA_files/PDF/D0022974.A2.pdf, Accessed 27 March 2019. 143. Ibid., p. 33. 144. Shevchenko, A.N., Breaking with Moscow, Alfred A.  Knopf, New  York, 1985, pp. 164–165. 145. Gerson, M.S., The Sino Soviet Border Conflict, p. 44. 146. Ob institute, Federal State Budget Scientific Establishment “Far Eastern Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Protection”, http://dvniizr.ucoz. ru/index/ob_institute/0-­4, Accessed on the 17 September 2018. 147. Primorskie zori, No. 142, 13 December 2014. 148. Meeting with former senior scientist from SANIIF, London, 31 September 2004. 149. Interview with former Deputy Director of GUNIiEPU plant pathology institute, 10–11 June 2003. 150. Primorskie zori. 151. PRC Report on Anti-Biological Warfare R&D, Chinese Government Reports (in Chinese), 1 August 1992, pp.  1–20, translated in JPRS Report, Science & Technology: China, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, JPRS-­ CST-­ 93-011, 14 June 1993, pp.  13–17; Croddy, E., China’s Role in the Chemical and Biological Disarmament Regimes, The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2002, http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/ vol09/91/91crod.pdf, Accessed on the 13 June 2008.

CHAPTER 4

From Estonia to Sakhalin Island: The Expansion of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Toxic Archipelago in the 1970s and 1980s The Interdepartmental Council and the New Focus on Molecular Biology There is considerable evidence that in the early 1970s the Soviet Union greatly increased the resources available to its agricultural biowarfare programme and expanded the network of facilities, for an intensification of the agricultural BW effort. This may have been in response to the revelations in the media concerning the scale of historical activities in this area in the US. More likely, it was a cynical attempt to take advantage of the termination of the US programme at this time and to exploit the lack of verification protocols in the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). If the latter explanation is correct, then there are close parallels here with the acceleration witnessed at this moment of time within the much larger Soviet anti-personnel BW programme, managed by the USSR Ministry of Defence in conjunction with Biopreparat, which ran concurrently with the agricultural BW effort. All the different strands of the invigorated Soviet BW programme were coordinated by a top-secret nerve centre, the Interdepartmental Scientific-­ Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (Mezhdomstvennyi nauchno-tekhnicheskii sovet po molekulyarnoi biologii i genetike, abbreviated for convenience in the text as MNTS). It was created in 1971 and fell under the control of the Main Administration of the Soviet

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microbiological industry (known as Glavmikrobioprom).1 The council which was initially headed by a leading virologist, Academician Viktor Mikhailovich Zhdanov, was attended by high-level representatives from a range of military and civil agencies participating in the offensive BW effort. These included Biopreparat, the USSR Ministry of Defence, USSR Academy of Sciences, USSR Ministry of Health and Glavmikrobioprom itself. High-level representatives from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Gosplan, the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) and the KGB always attended meetings of MNTS. The council had its own secretariat—the Administrative (or Special) Department—headed by Igor’ Valerianovich Domaradskii. It focused on preparing documentation, including the drafting of plans in accordance with special orders, issued annually by the USSR Ministry of Defence, regarding fundamental and applied tasks.2 Despite the extremely tight compartmentalisation of the Ekologiya programme, it did have representatives on the MNTS. Alibek reports that he attended the bimonthly meetings of the MNTS, and during these sessions, Major General Mikhail Aleksandrovich Khudyakov, the head of GUNIiEPU, reported on the activities of the agricultural BW programme.3 In this position, he fought for his department’s share of the hard (foreign) currency allocated annually by the Soviet authorities for dispersal by the council. While the bulk of these funds, some 40–45 per cent were directed to Biopreparat, the Ekologiya programme received around US $1–1.5 million per annum at this time. This was equivalent to around US $5–7.5 million at today’s prices.4 This allocation was of vital importance in the procurement of the latest Western equipment required for GUNIiEPU’s work in molecular biology. Another senior Ekologiya representative on the MNTS was Petr Ivanovich Morozov, a USSR Deputy Minister of Agriculture.5 In addition, the MNTS secret secretariat, headed by Domaradskii, is reported to have comprised several sections including one focused on the BW effort managed by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture.6 The new, expanded Soviet BW programme, managed by the MNTS, had a sharp focus on the development of genetically modified agents, with wholly new and unexpected properties. Domaradskii reports that up until the early 1970s, the GUNIiEPU network focused on unmodified pathogens. However, according to him, the “results left much to be desired” and the military were sceptical that without the use of the newly emerging technologies in molecular biology, success could not be achieved. From

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this point forward, running in parallel with R&D conducted by Biopreparat and other Soviet agencies engaged in BW research, there was a new focus within Ekologiya on the development of genetically modified agents.7 Despite this emphasis on molecular biology, it must be stressed that there is absolutely no evidence that the network succeeded in genetically enhancing any potential BW agents in any way. There is an intriguing piece of evidence in support of Domaradskii’s claim regarding GUNIiEPU’s new focus on molecular biology. In 1989, the USSR Ministry of Health issued a new set of national guidelines for the regulation of work in the USSR on recombinant DNA. Three officials leant their signatures to approve the new set of regulations. The first was Rem Viktorovich Petrov, a Vice President of the country’s leading scientific organisation, the USSR Academy of Sciences. The latter two were none other than Yurii Tikhonovich Kalinin, the head of Biopreparat, and Fedor Petrovich Kurchenko, the head of GUNIiEPU.8 Clearly, the fact that the approval was required of the chiefs of these two BW agencies, strongly suggests that both were controlling extensive research programmes encompassing genetic manipulation. One of the first of the new units focused on genetic manipulation to be created within the Ekologiya network was VNIIF’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Bol’shie Vyazemy.9 The lab, established in 1975, focused on the molecular genetics of phytopathogenic fungi, the molecular and genetic mechanisms of interaction between phytopathogens and their plant hosts, and an analysis of the genes controlling virulence, aggressiveness and toxin production.10 Molecular biology R&D units were also created in Ekologiya’s anti-­ livestock institutes, with a molecular virology laboratory being created under Valentin Luk’yanovich Zaitsev at NISKhI (Gvardeiskii). One of the consequences of the MNTS’s new emphasis on molecular biology was that research facilities within the Ekologiya programme now required regular supplies of restriction enzymes and other reagents required for advanced R&D in this field. It appears highly likely as a consequence that new linkages were formed between GUNIiEPU institutes and the Soviet manufacturers of molecular biology reagents which were controlled by Biopreparat. The most important facility in this regard was Biopreparat’s All-Union Scientific-Research of Applied Enzymology based in Vilnius, Lithuania. It began to supply restriction enzymes to Soviet laboratories in 1976.11

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The Development of Linkages to the USSR Ministry of Defence, Biopreparat and Other Branches of the Soviet BW Programme The creation of the MNTS was meant to signal a much greater degree of cooperation and coordination across the myriad of ministries and agencies pursuing the various distinct strands of the Soviet offensive BW programme. As has been indicated above, GUNIiEPU imposed an extraordinary degree of compartmentalisation upon its subordinate scientific units. Individual researchers found it extremely difficult to move between laboratories within the same institute, let alone communicate and collaborate with other facilities in the network. It is therefore perhaps not surprising to learn that, despite Major General Khudyakov’s position on the MNTS, very scant evidence has been found for the interaction of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW network with R&D and production units belonging to other BW agencies such as Biopreparat and the USSR Ministry of Defence. The most substantive links outside of the network appear to have been formed with institutions and facilities subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Defence. Of especial importance in this regard was the military’s Scientific-Research Sanitary Institute in Zagorsk (NIIS) which had a strong focus on viral diseases. This latter facility was a key source of senior personnel for the GUNIiEPU anti-livestock institutes which were created in the late 1950s. Moreover, a leading scientist from NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) reports that there was close collaboration between the Kazak BW facility and a laboratory belonging to NIIS.12 Meanwhile, an official publication of the Russian Ministry of Defence, refers to the fact that Major General Nikolai Nikolaevich Vasil’ev, a deputy director at NIIS, had advisory and/ or management roles at a number of facilities belonging to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture including VNIYaI (Yur’evets) and VNIIVViM (Vol’ginskii).13 Another Russian source also argues that the Gvardeiskii facility had links to the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-Research Institute of Hygiene (Sverdlovsk) although no evidence is available to substantiate this claim.14 There is very little evidence to link the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW network to Biopreparat which spearheaded the main Soviet offensive BW programme.15 One intriguing report claims that agents developed by NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) were tested at Biopreparat’s main virology facility, the Science Production Association Vektor (NPO Vektor) located in

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Kol’tsovo outside Novosibirsk.16 The existence of linkages between the two virology institutes would not be totally unexpected. In addition, Vektor is reported to have operated an open-air test site for non-infectious biological simulants, located a few kilometres outside the village of Kolyvan’.17 However, it must be stressed that scant evidence exists in the published literature for any linkages between Biopreparat and GUNIiEPU and any collaboration may in fact have been extremely limited or even not existed at all. Where one can be more certain is with regard to the flow of personnel between the different Soviet networks. It has already been demonstrated how military researchers were directed into the anti-livestock facilities of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. One of the most interesting accounts linking scientists from the GUNIiEPU’s network to elements of the Biopreparat programme is that provided by Igor’ Vlaerianovich Domaradskii. In 1978, the latter was appointed as scientific director at Biopreparat’s new BW facility, the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Applied Microbiology (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut prikladnoi mikrobiologii or VNIIPM) in Obolensk (Serpukhov raion, Moscow oblast’). Domaradskii reports that he headed up a VNIIPM project to develop a vaccine- and antibiotic-resistant strain of Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of the zoonotic disease tularaemia). However, according to him, basic data regarding the biochemistry and genetics of the microorganism was lacking. Therefore, he explains how two new facilities had to be created, Building 7 for research on the F. tularensis microbe, and a “preparatory” lab, headed by B.N. Sokolov, who had formerly been based at the Ministry of Agriculture’s VNIIVViM (Vol’ginskii).18 This example demonstrates that the Soviet authorities were prepared to transfer scientists with critical BW know-how from one network to another. It also points to the capabilities in molecular biology of scientists working on the Ekologiya programme. There is evidence to suggest that GUNIiEPU subsequently came under increasing pressure from the Soviet authorities to improve research links with other BW agencies and in fact, for this reason, did eventually consider relocating one of its most important anti-livestock institutes. During the late 1980s, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture secretly took the decision to relocate NISKhI from Gvardeiskii to a new site in north-western Kazakhstan. The intention was to base this vitally important institute at a site which would have much easier access to BW centres located in the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). Construction of

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new facilities did in fact begin on territory close to Ural’sk (West Kazakhstan oblast’) but the project is reported to have eventually been mothballed following the collapse of the USSR.

The Expansion of the Ekologiya Programme and the Opening of New Facilities in Estonia, Armenia and Tajikistan At the forefront of efforts to expand and intensify the anti-crop element of the Ekologiya programme was VNIIF. During the 1970s it underwent a rapid expansion with staff numbers rising to more than 1000 personnel, employed across 15 departments and laboratories.19 At Bol’shie Vyazemy, VNIIF grew during the 1970s and 1980s to eventually occupy a territory of 7 hectares. It was guarded by a large three-storeyed checkpoint building and incorporated its own 150-hectare experimental proving ground, “Ramenskaya gorka”, located some 3 km away from the main site.20 In addition, the facility eventually incorporated 9 experimental greenhouses each with an area of 600 m2 and around 60 phytotrons.21 Another facility to take a lead anti-crop BW role in the early 1970s was the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (NISKhI) in Gvardeiskii. Here there was a major expansion of work on the development and testing of new anti-crop agents. NISKhI was eventually reported to have incorporated five anti-crop laboratories which utilised strains maintained within the institute’s major collection of phytopathogenic fungi.22 Among the phytopathogenic fungi which were investigated at the facility during this period were: Puccinia graminis (causal agent of Stem Rust), Puccinia striiformis (causing Yellow Rust), Puccinia recondita (causing Brown Rust), Zymoseptoria tritici (causal agent of Septoria leaf blotch), Parastagonospora nodorum (causing Septoria nodorum blotch) and Phytophthora infestans (causing late blight disease in potatoes). In addition, a collection of 15,000 (including 500 pathogen-resistant) varieties of wheat sourced from around the world (including all commercial UK varieties) was held at Gvardeiskii (see Fig. 4.1). Many of the wheat varieties were selected for their resistance to fungal pathogens (rusts etc.) and approximately 500 pathogen-­ resistant seed varieties were maintained within this collection. Experiments to test newly developed anti-crop pathogens were conducted on site within NISKhI’s own greenhouses occupying a total area of 100 m2.23 The investment in Gvardeiskii’s anti-crop programme continued right through

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Fig. 4.1  View of dedicated storage area housing 15,000 wheat varieties, Laboratory of Plant Immunity, Scientific-Research Institute of Agriculture, Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

to the collapse of the USSR and several scientists who were evacuated to Russia at this time complained that they had been forced to leave behind valuable scientific equipment which had been recently purchased. A lead figure in the new anti-crop BW programme at Gvardeiskii was Gennadii Ivanovich Kobyl’skii. He was appointed head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Immunity and was able to recruit a number of postgraduate students. The new unit was very well equipped in comparison to labs within the civil sector and was in possession of ultracentrifuges, freeze driers, electrophoretic equipment, a liquid chromatograph, amino acid analyser and freezers for storage. Fermenters were also available on site. In 1984, Kobyl’skii was concomitantly appointed as a deputy head of science at Gvardeiskii. Upon taking up this position he was granted membership of NISKhI’s Scientific Council. This provided him with a unique overview of scientific programmes at Gvardeiskii and he participated in the management of the two major sectors focused on plant pathogens and livestock viruses. Then in 1987, for a period of two months, he took up the position of acting director at NISKhI, a clear indication that the development of anti-crop agents was now a major focus at the site.24

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Another major project initiated as part of the intensification of the anti-­ crop effort in the 1970s was the creation of an Experimental Station belonging to VNIIF in Estonia focused on Phytophthora infestans. The new facility was established in 1971 on the territory of the remote Soviet state farm (sovkhoz) in the centre of the village of Kamara, near Myizakyula in Viljandi county (see Fig. 4.2). The site was considered especially suitable for experiments with P. infestans because of the very high humidity in the locality. From the outset, the station was subject to extraordinary levels of secrecy and a leading Estonian plant breeder reports that nobody outside of the GUNIiEPU network was allowed to visit. VNIIF funded the construction of three buildings. One was a block of flats containing 18 apartments and was for general staff use (see Fig. 4.3). The two remaining buildings were for VNIIF use only and were each sub-divided into office/ laboratory and accommodation space. VNIIF also built a plant for central heating, a restaurant, a workshop for field machinery, an airfield and a warehouse for potato storage. The last was maintained in Abja-Vanamõisa, some 4–5  km outside of Kamara. VNIIF also had their own small

Fig. 4.2  View of road sign for Kamara, location of former Experimental Station, Estonia, 3 July 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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Fig. 4.3  View of block of flats constructed for Experimental Station, Kamara, Estonia, 3 July 2002. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

aerodrome and aeroplane at the site along with a meteorological station with automatic recorders for gathering continuous weather data. The state farm benefited greatly from the presence of the secret facility at the site and was allowed use of the aircraft for treatment of its own fields as well as being granted access to field machinery for potato cultivation. While the station and the sovkhoz maintained a completely separate management, these worked in extremely close collaboration with one another.25 The lead scientist at Kamara and described as “a very good person” by local Estonians was Professor Dmitrii Lukich Tverskoi. He served as director of VNIIF until 1974 and headed up its Laboratory of Fungal Diseases of Potato and Vegetable Crops. Another of the main driving forces behind the Kamara project was Nikolai Yakovlevich Kvasnyuk, a leading VNIIF expert on P. infestans. He advocated the expansion of the Kamara site but his plans were never implemented. The Kamara Experimental Station operated primarily on a seasonal basis. Every Spring some 25–40 staff would arrive from Moscow and they were supported by 2–3 permanent local staff members employed as technicians in both the field and

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laboratory.26 There were five separate Groups operating at the station in three to four laboratories. The first four were focused on the following areas: prognosis of late blight in potatoes, control of late blight in small plot trials, monitoring and control of cereal diseases (stem and yellow rusts) and disease control in large state farm fields. The final group was focused on aircraft trials which included testing special equipment for the application of ultra-low dosages of fungicide. This last group was also engaged in analysis of treatments of fields of potatoes and cereals in the event of exposure at an early stage of development to biological warfare agents.27 In 1972, as part of its P. infestans programme, VNIIF also established a subordinate experimental station, incorporating a harvesting section, at Novoaleksandrovka (Aniva raion), located to the north of Yuzhno-­ Sakhalinsk, on Sakhalin Island—an area closed to foreigners during the Soviet period.28 The station was known officially as the Sakhalin Reference Point (Sakhalinskyi opornyi punkt VNIIF).29 The director of the station in 1978 was G.I. Loktina who had been based at the facility early in her scientific career.30 Another director, date unknown, was L.P. Kostrikov. From 1975 to 1990, potato cultivars were tested here against extremely virulent and aggressive isolates of P. infestans which are endemic to the island. It is interesting to note that the island’s P. infestans population has, since the onset of the VNIIF tests, developed fungicide resistance.31 There is also tantalising evidence to suggest that VNIIF also created a “Reference Point” (opornyi punkt) branch facility in the Republic of Yakutia (Sakha). An article reviewing the history of VNIIF, written by Sergei Sanin, refers to this facility but provides no precise location, simply stating that it was based in “Yakutia”.32 Given that the republic is the largest subnational governing body by area in the world, covering some 3,083,523 square kilometres, then this is not especially useful in aiding the identification of its specific location. However, a single legal document released online in 2004 by the Republic of Sakha points to the facility being located near the isolated settlement of Olekminsk, situated on the shore of the Lena River, some 530 km to the south-west of Yakutsk. The opornyi punkt is located somewhere to the north of the settlement close to the Malaya Cherepanikha River.33 Olekminsk possesses an airstrip which presumably enabled VNIIF scientists to gain access to this highly remote outstation. Possibly it was also used for aerial spraying and/or monitoring by planes. The size and extent of this branch facility and its role in the Ekologiya programme remains unknown.

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Another new anti-crop facility established in 1981 by GUNIiEPU was the Central Russian Branch of VNIIF which was located in the isolated settlement of Novaya zhizn’ (“New Life”) around 30 km to the west of Tambov. Some 150 personnel were employed at the branch, including 50 engaged in scientific research and 100 employed in pilot production. It took control of some 2000  hectares of agricultural land from adjacent state farms and also maintained 300 cattle, a mechanical repair shop and a garage.34 Originally, there were ambitious plans for this branch of VNIIF which was envisaged as forming the nucleus of a new scientific township embracing schools, a sports complex and so on—a scaled-down version of Novosibirsk’s Akademgorodok—with extensive R&D capability. During the period 1986–1987, five of the seven anti-crop BW laboratories based at Gvardeiskii were closed and the staff were transferred to Novaya zhizn’. It was planned that these would form the basis for the creation of a major new plant pathology centre at the site.35 However, this ambitious project was stymied during perestroika and of the planned buildings for the new facility, only an extensive outer security wall and large main administration building were completed. Failure to complete construction of dedicated laboratories forced management to “temporarily” locate its research groups within the administration building. According to Georgette Naskidashvili, who had been employed at VNIIF’s Kobuleti branch, the Central Russian Branch had the reputation of being one of the least well-resourced facilities and, possibly as a consequence, the scientific staff were believed to be among the weakest in the Soviet anti-crop system.36 The Tambov branch was one of the most isolated in the anti-crop network and besides some joint work with Sanin’s aerobiology unit, only engaged in collaboration with NISKhI in Gvardeiskii and VNIIF’s facility in Kobuleti. No foreign nationals were allowed access to the site.37 Detailed information concerning research programmes underway in Novaya zhizn’ in the period through to 1991 is not available. During the 1970s and 1980s, GUNIiEPU implemented a similar expansion of the anti-livestock network. In 1970 for example, the USSR Council of Ministers issued a decree regarding the creation of two major new branches of VNIYaI in the Caucasus (Zakavkazskii filial VNIYaI) and in Central Asia (Sredniaziatskii filial VNIYaI).38 The first of these was established on the outskirts of Yerevan in 1971. This “closed” facility was created on the basis of a local veterinary institute which had been in existence since 1930. There were significant transfers of personnel from the veterinary institute at Gvardeiskii to Yerevan. In 1974 for example,

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Professor Aleksandr Ivanovich Anufriev, a deputy scientific director and head of a laboratory at NISKhI, was transferred by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture to Armenia and appointed director of the Caucasus Branch of VNIYaI (Yerevan). The facility at this time was still under construction. In his new position Anufriev was appointed as a member of GUNIiEPU’s Scientific-Technical Council.39 Staffing levels at the Yerevan facility eventually stood at 200 personnel. The facility’s research programme was conducted under strict control from Moscow and is reported to have been primarily focused on FMD. The institute is reported to have investigated the possibilities of the airborne transmission of pathogenic agents and transmission via insects and so on.40 It incorporated its own facilities for the production of liquid nitrogen used in the storage of pathogenic viruses.41 The Yerevan branch of VNIYaI also incorporated significant industrial capacity for the production of vaccines. It manufactured vaccines against FMD, Newcastle disease and rabbit haemorrhagic disease. Its concentrated FMD vaccine was supplied to farms across Georgia.42 In 1971, a second, Central Asian Branch was also established by VNIYaI, located approximately 12 km outside Dushanbe, Tajikistan. This facility was founded and led throughout the Soviet period by Vitalii Fedorovich Ivanov.43 It is reported to have employed 150 personnel and to have occupied a site embracing some 5 hectares. Construction of the main buildings on the site was completed in 1982 and the facility then began to be fully operational. It was well equipped—some scientists considered it to be superior to NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) in this regard—and possessed four or five 250-litre bioreactors. There was a vivarium with capacity for 150 experimental cattle, including special facilities for autoclaving of carcasses and automated transfer to an incinerator. The main focus of the branch during the Soviet period was on FMD with a lapinised vaccine having been produced on site. Some work was also conducted on classical swine fever and sheeppox.44 By the late 1970s, VNIYaI was emerging as one of the world’s largest centres devoted to research on the viral diseases of animals.45 In 1977 it took on the role of a coordination centre for FMD across the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) Countries.46 In addition, in 1981, the construction began of a major production plant at Yur’evets, on territory belonging to VNIYaI. Four years later, in December 1985, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture issued Order No. 7-25 for the creation of an Experimental Factory Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat at the site. This represented a major expansion of VNIYaI’s capacity for the manufacture of FMD vaccines. The Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat plant was eventually to

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employ 260 personnel within the main production area. It incorporated high-­ containment facilities and was equipped with fermenters with a capacity of 2000 litres. The plant was engaged in the large-scale production of FMD virus in BHK-21 suspension cell culture. The virus was utilised for the manufacture of mono-, bi-, tri- and quadrivalent FMD vaccines. Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat also produced a combined vaccine against FMD and blackleg and an inactivated vaccine against Aujeszky’s disease.47 VNIYaI and its associated production plant eventually occupied an 11.6-hectare area at Yur’evets.48 At the end of July 1970, the Ekologiya network was further extended with the creation of a major new facility focused on the potential impact of nuclear fallout on agricultural crops and livestock. Under the terms of the USSR Council of Ministers decree No. 625-195, the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Agricultural Radiology (VNIISKhR) was built close to Obninsk. It was created on the basis of the Biophysical Laboratory (Biofizicheskaya laboratoriya or BFL) belonging to the Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, with the entire scientific team and its equipment being transferred to the new facility.49 VNIISKhR was equipped with specialised installations such as the GUR-120 and the GUZh-24 for the exposure of plants and animals to gamma radiation. It is highly likely that the facility interacted closely with, or possibly even managed, the projects at SANIIF (Tashkent) and SKNIIF (Krasnodar) focused on measuring radioactive accumulation in wheat and other plants (see pp. 50–52). The institute later played a lead role in mitigating the impact on Soviet agriculture of the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in April 1986. More than 200 of its staff were engaged in this titanic effort.50

Harnessing Virulent Plant Pathogens from the Soviet Network of Monitoring Stations and Plant Breeding Facilities The Soviet Union established a network of 300 monitoring and diagnosis stations, dispersed across the USSR, for the purposes of civil defence. As part of this role they were given a wide range of responsibilities including the detection of spores. One such network was created in Estonia at some point in 1971 or 1972 with monitoring and diagnosis stations based in Pärnu, Põlva and Jõgeva, with a central office being located in Saku. The stations were engaged in the trapping of Phytophthora infestans and cereal

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rust spores, and the monitoring of development of the main diseases in fields growing crops. The stations were also engaged in the testing of ultra-low dosages of fungicides. The Estonian stations had no direct links to VNIIF or its nearby branch in Kamara. Data on their findings were transmitted to Soviet civil defence authorities in Pskov.51 Presumably, VNIIF scientists had full access to the data being generated by the monitoring stations. VNIIF also maintained close relations with plant breeding institutes across the USSR. Although it was not their primary focus, these civil institutes cooperated with VNIIF by collecting and dispatching virulent strains to Bol’shie Vyazemy. One former Soviet scientist described this as one of the most extensive programmes of collecting virulent plant pathogens ever undertaken by any country. During the period 1971–1991 for example, VNIIF collaborated on a number of All-Union programmes with the Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute in Estonia. As part of the cooperation, the Estonian scientists despatched some 20–50 isolates each year of Phytophthora infestans by post to VNIIF and, on at least two occasions during this period, a senior scientist from Jõgeva visited the anti-crop facility in Bol’shie Vyazemy. Communications from the anti-crop facility to Jõgeva were always marked “for restricted use only”.52 Interestingly, despite being aware of the existence of the VNIIF facility at Kamara in Estonia, nobody at Jõgeva had any contact with the scientists there because of its security restrictions.

Africa as a Source of Novel Pathogens? The International Dimensions of the Ekologiya Programme It was at this time of Soviet expansion of the BW programme that a highly significant international dimension to the activities of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture was added. This manifested itself on 12 June 1970 with the signing of a protocol “Concerning the Organization of a Veterinary Laboratory” between the USSR and the People’s Republic of the Congo (RoC)—at this time a Marxist-Leninist socialist state.53 The new project attracted attention from the highest levels of the RoC government with the Prime Minister, Henri Lopez, visiting the site in August 1975, during its construction phase.54 The newly created Brazzaville Veterinary Scientific Laboratory, located opposite the Stade de la Revolution, was subsequently

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opened with great fanfare on 27 July 1977. The importance attached to the project is evidenced by the fact that Colonel Jacques Joachim Yhombi-­ Opango, head of state of the RoC, together with a USSR deputy minister of agriculture, were both in attendance at the opening ceremony.55 Under the terms of the protocol, the laboratory is reported to have been directly subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, with it reverting to control of the RoC government after a period of five years.56 The lab is reported to have been substantive in size and a large group of Soviet veterinary specialists worked at the site.57 In 1981, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Burdov, director of VNIIYaI, was appointed concurrently as director of the African facility. Given Burdov’s long-term participation in the Ekologiya programme, then it appears likely that at least part of his role may have concerned the acquisition for the USSR of new, more virulent, pathogens.58 It was not long before the anti-crop branch of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture sought to create its own Africa-based facility focused on plant pathology. At some point around 1976–1977, Vitalii Trofimovich Goncharov, later to emerge as an important GUNIiEPU anti-crop scientist, was sent for a period of three years on a special assignment to Ethiopia where he was a key actor in the creation of a new Soviet-Ethiopian Scientific Phytopathological Laboratory (SPL), fully funded by the USSR, in the small spa town of Ambo, located in the West Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region, 130 km west of Addis Ababa. The facility, which employed Soviet scientists and young Ethiopian trainees, was created in accordance with a bilateral agreement between Ethiopia and the Soviet Union.59 Under its terms, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture was to retain control of SPL’s laboratory premises and installations, along with 60 hectares of land, until 1986–1987, when they would be transferred to Ethiopian control.60 A critical role in the creation of the laboratory was played by specialists from the Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Pathology (SANIIF) including M. Iminov, A. Khakimov, Kh. Turdyev and O. Iskov.61 The agricultural department of the Central Committee of the CPSU appointed Boris Vasil’evich Anisimov—who up until this point was serving as head of science at the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Potato Farming—as director of SPL.62 Much of the research focus at SPL was on rust diseases in wheat and on diseases in potato. Cooperation agreements involving the exchange of plant lines were signed with a number of international research centres, including the International Potato Centre (Peru) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre—CIMMYT—in Mexico. By

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1983, the SPL collection included around 70 potato clones and varieties maintained in modern cold storage and an additional 3000 wheat lines and varieties. These differed in their degrees of susceptibility to leaf, stem and stripe rusts.63 Anisimov reported that special importance was also attached to the isolation of pure cultures of potato late blight.64 It is highly likely that both pathogens and resistant plant varieties isolated in Ethiopia were subsequently transferred by SPL to GUNIiEPU facilities. This endeavour to acquire pathogenic microorganisms in Africa parallels similar efforts made by the Biopreparat network, which, using domestic intermediaries, succeeded in sourcing highly dangerous pathogens such as variants of the Marburg virus and Ebola virus from overseas laboratories.65

The Emergence of the New Scientific Leadership of the Soviet Anti-crop BW Programme In the mid-1970s, a new generation of dynamic and talented scientists emerged to lead the Soviet Union’s expansion of its anti-crop BW programme. VNIIF in Bol’shie Vyazemy remained as the nerve centre of the network with the senior management of the institute coordinating research across the various institutes and their subordinate branches. In 1974, Anatolii Andreevich Makarov was appointed director of VNIIF and from then until the collapse of the USSR exercised full control over the scientific phytopathology programmes pursued by GUNIiEPU. One phase of Makarov’s early life may have made him especially suited to lead a network of facilities, which, among its other tasks, included the protection of agricultural crops in the USSR.  Makarov’s home village was located in the Kimovsk district of Tula oblast’, the location in late 1941 of ferocious fighting between invading German forces and the Soviet defenders. Tula, which was heavily fortified, held out against the German offensive and the city secured the southern flank during the battle of Moscow. Just a year after these heroic events, Makarov began working on a local collective farm and was subsequently awarded the medal “For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945”. In his position at the farm, Makarov would have been made acutely aware by the farms’ politically controlled management of the critical importance of food supply in the success of the Soviet war economy.66 The key period in Makarov’s transformation from plant pathologist to lead figure within the Soviet Union’s anti-crop programme appears to

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have occurred during the years 1962 through to 1974 when he was officially reported to have been appointed to a number of lead positions within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. These ranged from senior agronomist in the Main Administration of Agricultural Sciences, Propaganda and Introduction of Best Practice, to the First Deputy Head of the Main Administration of Potato, Vegetable and Gourd Crops. In reality, it is during this period in the Moscow agricultural ministry that Makarov is highly likely to have had a secret role with regard to the military anti-crop programmes pursued by GUNIiEPU and in 1974 to have been identified by officials as the principal candidate for the position of director at VNIIF. Makarov’s success in his new position, which he held for just over a quarter of a century, is evidenced by the fact that he was subsequently showered with a number of important state awards including the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of the Badge of Honour.67 Another individual to emerge in the 1970s as a pivotal scientist within the Ekologiya programme was Sergei Stepanovich Sanin. He was a student of Professor Konstantin Mikhailovich Stepanov (see pp.  44–45), who, since the 1930s, had been engaged in work on aerobiology. Sanin completed his Candidate’s thesis on aerobiology in 1968. During this work he was provided with his own “aerial laboratory”—a specially adapted aircraft (samoletnaya laboratoriya PARZ—the PARZ aerial laboratory) for studies of the transfer of fungal spores across mountains, lakes and other terrain. He and his co-workers spent many hundreds of hours flying time engaged in aerobiological studies. He also appears to have been closely involved with a project to develop an aerosol generator based on jet engine technology which allowed 700 hectares per hour to be covered in microbial pesticides.68 In the period from 1960 to 1974, Sanin worked as Head of the Department of Aerobiology at GUNIiEPU’s North Caucasus Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology (Krasnodar). In 1974, Sanin was appointed Head of the Department of Cereal Crop Disease at VNIIF where he appears to have managed a major Aerobiology Project which was coordinated across the GUNIiEPU anti-crop BW network.69 It incorporated researchers based in Bol’shie Vyazemy, as well as Krasnodar, Gvardeiskii, Durmen’ and Möisaküla. An example of one lab integrated within the project is the Laboratory of Rust Disease Forecasts which was headed up by Dr Batyr Achilovich Khasanov, based at SANIIF in Uzbekistan. Khasanov was in charge of an Aerobiology Group which

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possessed its own aircraft for detecting fungal spore clouds. Individual rust species could be detected using the instrumentation installed on board the aircraft. Monitoring took place at a range of different altitudes. As well as the Aerobiology Group, Khasanov’s lab also incorporated a group tasked with ground-level detection and monitoring of fungal spores. Annual coordination meetings for Sanin’s project were held each year in VNIIF. Another important scientific collaborator of Sanin was Vitalii Trofimovich Goncharov who was based at SKNIIF in Krasnodar. Here he headed up the Laboratory of Aerobiology after the departure of Sanin.70

The Maintenance of a Strict Regime of Secrecy Within the GUNIiEPU Network: Security Measures in Place at Ekologiya Facilities in Uzbekistan and Georgia A key feature of GUNIiEPU in the 1970s and 1980s expansionist phase was the imposition of ever more stringent regimes of secrecy. The agency is reported to have been “closed” (i.e. secret) and only facilities belonging to its own network were allowed to participate in its projects and programmes. One former Soviet scientist noted that it was highly unusual to work with facilities belonging to other Soviet departments and academies. Even within the organisation there was an extraordinary degree of compartmentalisation. Scientists based at SANIIF in Uzbekistan, for example, report that they were only able to visit laboratories at other Ekologiya facilities with which they were engaged in joint projects or focused on the same scientific areas as themselves. They had no view of any plant pathology projects being pursued by the Ministry of Agriculture in any other scientific areas. Even within SANIIF, a senior researcher was apparently unable to visit labs in the facility which lay outside their main area of research.71 SANIIF is reported to have possessed its own “Secret Department” which was responsible for maintaining security at the site. Each morning, senior scientific personnel would visit the Department in order to collect numerically coded bags corresponding to the secret projects in which they were engaged. Each numbered bag had to be signed for separately and contained secret documentation relating to research being conducted within a lab. At the end of each working day the bags were deposited back in the Secret Department. It was not permitted to leave any secret

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documentation in a laboratory for any significant period of time. Prior to departing from a lab, for example to conduct experiments in the field or within greenhouses, personnel had to place any documents in a personal safe which was sealed, effectively but archaically, with string and a wax seal to ensure that no breaches of security had taken place. The safes were each provided with their own combination number and a single key to operate the opening mechanism.72 There are reported to have been several levels of secrecy in force at SANIIF. The lowest designated level permitted documentation to be read by technicians employed in the laboratory. The next level was “secret”. Above this, documentation was marked “top secret”. The highest security level applied to documentation was “most secret”.73 A senior scientist based in Tashkent reports that, after the collapse of the USSR, he conducted a full review of the activities of SANIIF. He notes that 11 KGB personnel were based at the facility with security being further enhanced via the installation of listening devices within every office and laboratory. During the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB personnel on site had responsibility for the destruction of vast quantities of documents relating to research conducted by the institute.74 Another SANIIF researcher describes how the work at his facility was extremely narrow and heavily targeted towards achieving one objective, namely the development of wheat rusts as BW agents. He had his own personal doubts about the viability of anti-crop weapons and disliked the constricting, narrow focus of his work. He therefore used the system of secrecy to conceal his pursuit of a number of ongoing civil projects in which he had a genuine scientific interest.75 A range of privileges were made available to GUNIiEPU scientists to offset the stresses induced by the strict regime of secrecy and total isolation from the outside world. Scientific personnel at SANIIF for example could order any Western publication from a central agricultural library and this was then copied using photocopiers within the institute. One former senior staff member recalls that he personally translated, from English into Russian, some 2000-odd plant pathology papers published in Western journals. These translations were then deposited within the institute’s extensive and well-stocked library.76 In a similar fashion, scientific personnel employed at NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) were provided with their own polyclinic, kindergarten, school, cultural centre, post office and well-provisioned shops.77 Specialised medical units were established at the Ekologiya institutes, both to monitor the health status of workers and to provide medical

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care for the staff and their families. One such was Medical-Sanitary Unit No. 127, created in Vol’ginskii in February 1974. It was operated by the USSR Ministry of Health’s Third Main Directorate for personnel based at both VNIIVViM and the adjacent Pokrov biologics plant.78 Similar units were established by the directorate at BW installations across the USSR. Another facility subject to extraordinary levels of secrecy and intrusive security measures was the Georgian Branch of VNIIF in Kobuleti (see Fig. 4.4).79 It was protected by three concentric rings of security walls with associated guard posts, security wiring, floodlights and so on. Internally there were also elaborate security systems with extensive alarm wiring of all doors and pressure-sensitive pads on windows. Throughout the Soviet period there was only one external telephone line linking the facility to the outside world which was based in the administration building. This was only for use by the director. Staff were not allowed outside contact during working hours. In addition, there was an absolute prohibition upon the

Fig. 4.4  Elaborate security system preventing unauthorised access to offices and laboratories at Georgian Branch of VNIIF,  Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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publication of research results and Candidate’s theses. In recognition of the importance of their secret work, however, the scientific and support staff employed at Kobuleti again received a valuable package of benefits from the Soviet authorities. The director is reported to have received an enhanced salary of 600 roubles a month which was equivalent at the time to that of a regional government leader. In addition, the staff received free milk, deliveries of high-quality clothing and extended, free vacations.80 There were a few exceptions to the isolation imposed on the Ekologiya scientists. Certain, highly trusted individuals within the system, were permitted to attend international meetings. In 1984 for example, Georgette Naskidashvili, at that time a senior anti-crop scientist, reports that she was allowed to visit the Philippines for a four-week period as part of a Soviet observation group at an international conference. It appears there may have been some justification for such Soviet caution with regard to granting permission for international travel because Naskidashvili reports that during the conference, she was allegedly approached by an English-­ speaking Vietnamese national who offered her alternative employment with a greatly enhanced salary. As indicated above though, for the vast bulk of the GUNIiEPU researchers, permission to participate in such international gatherings was highly unlikely ever to be granted by the Soviet authorities.81 Another significant exception with regard to the imposed isolation of Ekologiya scientists concerned attendance at scientific events organised by GUNIiEPU within the Soviet Union. For example, the leading anti-crop scientists were allowed to participate in a series of conferences held to honour the memory of K.M. Stepanov, a Soviet expert on aerobiology (see pp. 44–45). These meetings were held in Kobuleti (1983), Vil’yandi (1986), Tashkent-Chimgan (1988) and Anapa (1991). The 1986 meeting was focused on wheat rusts and late blight of potato with side-meetings held on rice blast. Some 60 or so GUNIiEPU anti-crop scientists attended the conference at Tashkent-Chimgan in 1988, including senior representatives from VNIIF (Bol’shie Vyazemy), SANIIF (Durmen’, Uzbekistan) and SKNIIF (Krasnodar).82 These events, allowing the anti-crop scientists very rare opportunities to travel outside their own institutions, played a crucial role in the coordination of research programmes conducted across the closed network.

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The Launch of the Flora Programme and the Development of Tactical Herbicides for the Military Running alongside the intensification of the anti-crop biological warfare effort in the 1970s there is evidence that the Soviet Union also launched a new programme at this time, codenamed Flora, focused on the development of tactical herbicides for the military. The CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers is reported to have issued decree No. 22-7 on 5 January 1973 “On Stepping-Up Research and Development into Chemical Weapons Against Vegetation and on Developing Ways and Means of Defence Against the Same”.83 Flora was one of a number of major Soviet programmes focused on aspects of biological and chemical warfare which were given a codename beginning with the letter F. The focus on development of herbicides for military application had in fact been initiated in the 1950s. The chemical agents are reported to have been synthesised at both VNIIF and at facilities belonging to the USSR Academy of Sciences. In September 1962, a major new player in this field emerged with the creation under the USSR Ministry of the Chemical Industry of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of the Chemical Means of Plant Protection (VNIIKhSZR).84 The Moscow-based institution is reported to have been engaged in the manufacture of military herbicides at pilot plants located at its branches in Shchelkovo and Ufa. As indicated above, in January 1973 the Soviet Union expanded the herbicides effort and launched the Flora programme. Under the terms of the new decree the USSR Ministry of Forestry now became an important participant in Flora and a new facility was created and tasked with conducting research in this area, the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Chemicalization of Forestry (VNIIKhleskhoz) in the town of Ivanteevka (Moscow oblast’).85 Full-scale trials of the military herbicides on plants are then reported to have been conducted at a breeding and experimental tree nursery in Ivanteevka, at the Leningrad Scientific-Research Institute of Forestry and at forests in Krasnoyarsk krai, Kostroma oblast’, Arkhangel’sk oblast’, Novosibirsk oblast’ and so on. Additional trials were conducted at branches belonging to VNIIF and at the SKNIIF (Krasnodar) and SANIIF (Durmen’, Uzbekistan) facilities. Some additional information is available concerning the work of SANIIF on the military herbicide project. It is known that the facility utilised a 700-hectare area to test non-specific herbicides, with particular

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emphasis upon defoliants synthesised at “special” (presumably military) institutes located at undisclosed locations in the USSR. In the period from the 1950s through to the 1980s more than 1200 chemicals were tested, using a range of 22 biochemical tests, on plants in experimental plots at Durmen’. SANIIF was provided with numerically coded, unidentified chemicals, with which to conduct the tests and then relayed the experimental results back to Moscow.86 All these chemical trials conducted within the Ekologiya network are reported to have had a severe impact on local flora and fauna. By the end of the 1970s the herbicides project was deemed to have been a success and the leading Soviet scientists engaged in the programme were showered with honours.87 Writing in 1993, a Russian journalist made a damning assessment of the military herbicide R&D conducted by VNIIF and its affiliates. “My question about what they had achieved caught them off guard … far from anything world-class, the institute could not point to any developments currently being used in our domestic agriculture. … For over 30 years this outfit had been working hard at something, had spent millions of pre-­ inflation roubles, and conducted thousands of experiments around the country—from Sakhalin to the Kuban. And none of this had found a place in our nation’s agriculture?! Just for whom then, had they been working? What about the institute’s Professor N.K. Bliznyuk, for example? … The institute had been doing research and development for the military: it had been studying the possibility of using continuous-acting herbicides to destroy the enemy’s standing crops. The Americans, who had become convinced of the futility of this approach back in the early 1960s, made use of the war in Vietnam to get rid of their enormous reserves of these extremely toxic substances on the quiet. Meanwhile, our own ‘defence’ industry was still trying to find a military application for herbicides at the end of the 1980s.”88

Alibek’s Account of the Early Termination of GUNIiEPU’s BW Programme Alibek reports that the Soviet Union abandoned its offensive anti-crop BW programme at the end of the 1980s. Some military laboratories working on plant pathogens are reported to have been dissolved as a consequence. According to Alibek the offensive research was terminated, not because of external international pressure but for purely strategic reasons.

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The USSR Ministry of Defence is reported to have eventually come to the view that while agricultural agents were useful in terrorist operations or for the purpose of disrupting the target country’s economy, they would have no significant strategic role in any future wars.89 However, one should be cautious of simply accepting Alibek’s version of events. Certainly, it is the case that GUNIiEPU remained in existence right through to the collapse of the USSR in December 1991. There were reorganisations of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, which was reformed in 1985 as the USSR State Agro-Industrial Committee (Gosagroprom) and then later again, as the USSR Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MSKhP SSSR) but GUNIiEPU remained intact. Moreover, senior scientists, who, unlike Alibek, were directly employed within the GUNIiEPU system, are sceptical of his account and maintain that the network of facilities remained fully funded and operational until the final collapse of the USSR in December 1991.90 In an interview given in 1998, Seidigapbar M.  Mamadaliev, the then Director of NISKhI, confirmed that Moscow had terminated military funding to his institute only in 1991.91 Whilst the Ekologiya programme continued to be pursued through to the collapse of the USSR, it is interesting to speculate whether, as was the case with the parallel Biopreparat network, it began in the late 1980s, to take on a much larger role in the civil agricultural sector.

Notes 1. The Main Administration of the Microbiological Industry under the USSR Council of Ministers (Glavnoe upravlenie mikrobiologicheskoi promyshlennosti pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR or Glavmikrobioprom) was created on 18 February 1966. 2. The secretariat operated under the cover designation of P.O. Box A-3092 (p/ya A-3092). Domaradskij, I.V., with Orent, W., Biowarrior, pp.  145 and 154–155. 3. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, p. 18. 4. Annual inflation over this period was some 3.62 per cent. 5. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with  Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, note 8, p. 772. 6. Ibid., p. 155. 7. Domaradskij, I.V., with Orent, W., Biowarrior, p. 157. 8. The author wishes to acknowledge his thanks to Professor Aryvydas Janulaitis, director of the Institute of Applied Enzymology Fermentas, who on 23 March 1991 sent a copy of the regulations governing work in the USSR on recombinant DNA.  See Sanitarno-protivoepidemicheskie

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pravila “bezopasnost’ raboty s rekominantnymi molekulami DNK”, USSR Ministry of Health, Moscow 1989. 9. Otdel’ No. 7—Otdel molekulyarnoi biologii, Entry on the official website of VNIIF, 25 December 2015, http://www.vniif.ru/vniif/structure/ otdel7, Accessed on the 24 November 2020. 10. Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii (VNIIF), Date and Place of Publication Unknown. 11. Rimmington, A., The Soviet Union’s Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction: Biopreparat’s Covert Biological Warfare Programme, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming. 12. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 13. Vasil’ev Nikolai Nikolaevich (1929–1985), p. 313 in Lukina, R.N., Lukin, E.P., Bulavko, V.K., Dostoiny izvestnosti: 50 let virusologicheskomu tsentru ministerstva oborony, Ves’ Sergiev Posad, Sergiev Posad, 2004, p. 313. 14. Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Ye., Yeleukenov, D., Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 11. 15. One anti-crop researcher based at NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) was reported to be a regular traveller to Stepnogorsk. However, he was never granted permission to visit Biopreparat’s SNOPB plant focused on production of B. anthracis. Interview with former Gvardeiskii scientist, 30 January 2002. 16. Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 11. 17. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with Kuhn, J.H.,  The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 215. 18. Domaradkii, I., “Perevertysh”: Rasskaz “neudobnogo” cheloveka, Self-­ Published, Moscow, 1995, p. 89. 19. Stranitsy istorii. 20. Information supplied by former Soviet senior anti-crop scientist, 16 February 2001. 21. Ibid. 22. Interview with former staff member (1960–1985) of Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan), Ala-Acha, Kyrgyz Republic, 12 September 1999. 23. Information provided during tour of anti-crop laboratories and greenhouses to author, Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii settlement, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999. 24. Information provided by senior GUNIiEPU scientist, 31 January 2002. 25. Late blight related activities at experimental station of All-Union Institute of Plant Pathology (VNIIF) in Kamara (Viljandi county, Estonia), Information provided by Estonian plant breeding scientist, 11 November 2002. 26. Interview with two former employees of Kamara Experimental Station, Kamara, Mõisakula, Viljandi county, Estonia, 3 July 2002. 27. Late blight related activities at experimental station of All-Union Institute of Plant Pathology (VNIIF).

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28. Novoaleksandrovka has since been incorporated into the city of Yuzhno-­ Sakhalinsk. Otdel No. 5—Otdel mikologii i immuniteta, Istoriya, Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii, http://vniif. ru/vniif/structure/otdel5/page/75, Accessed on the 24 September 2019. 29. Sakhalinskii opornyi punkt vsesoyuznogo nauchno-issledovatelskogo instituta fitopatologii, pos. Novoaleksandrovka Anivskogo raiona (1971–1972), Fond No. R-56, http://galsso.ru/funds/list/fund-­p56, Accessed on the 24 September 2019. 30. Dinamika ras vozbuditelya fitoftoroza kartofelya na Sakhalinskom opornom punkte VNIIF v 1978 g., 1978. Original VNIIF document consulted by the author. 31. Information provided by former Soviet anti-crop scientist to author, 29 January 2002. 32. Sanin, S.S., 50—let na strazhe prodovol’stvennoi bezopasnosti strany. 33. Opisanie granitsy gorodskogo poseleniya “poselok Olekminsk” Olekminskogo upusa (raiona), Prilozhenie 1.10 k Zakonu Respubliki Sakha (Yakutiya) “Ob ustanovlenii granits i o naselenii stausom gorodskogo i sel’skogo poselenii munitsipal’nykh obrazovanii Respubliki Sakha (Yakutiya)”, Zakon Republiki Sakha (Yakutiya) ot 30.11.2004 173-3 N 353-­ III ob ustanovlenii granits i o naselenii stausom gorodskogo i sel’skogo poselenii munitsipal’nykh obrazovanii Respubliki Sakha (Yakutiya), http:// pravo.levonevsky.org/bazazru/zakon63/str2.htm, Accessed on the 6 March 2020. 34. Information provided by former Soviet anti-crop scientists, 30 January 2002. 35. Information provided by senior scientist at NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, 8 April 2003. 36. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (Director), main building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 5 May 2001. 37. Information provided by former Soviet anti-crop scientists, 30 January 2002. 38. “Rossel’khoznadzor Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe uchrezhdenie “Federal’nyi tsentr okhrany zdorov’ya zhivotnykh” (FGU “VNIIZZh”) Tsentr MEB po sotrudnichestvo v oblasti diagnostiki i kontrolya …”, http://wiki.pdfm.ru/36selskohozyaistvo/72209-­1-­r osselhoznadzor-­ federalnoe-­g osudarstvennoe-­u chrezhdenie-­f ederalniy-­c entr-­o hrani-­ zdorovya-­zhi.php, Accessed on the 6 November 2019. 39. Anufriev, Aleksandr Ivanovich, MKUK TsBS Krasnenskogo raiona, https://kcbs.bel.muzkult.ru/zemlyaki?mobile=0, Accessed on the 13 March 2020.

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40. Information provided during meeting interview with management at the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan, Armenia, 21 September 2002. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Sotrudniki FGBU “VNIIZZh” ne zabyvayut svoikh veteranov v Krymu, Website of the All-Russian Institute of Animal Health, http://arriah.ru/ en/node/3846, Accessed on the 3 March 2020. 44. Interview with senior staff member of the Central Asian FMD Institute, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. 45. Rimmington, A., Fragmentation and Proliferation? The Fate of the Soviet Union’s Offensive Biological Weapons Programme, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 20, No. 1, April 1999, p. 89. 46. Westerdahl, K., Building and Measuring Confidence, Appendix A, p. 5. 47. The plant incorporated a number of Departments including Department of Media Production; Department of Cell Culture; Department of Virus Production in Suspension; and Department of Vaccine Formulation, Filling and Packing. Of the 260 employees in the main production area, 22 were degree holders. Poster display at “Russian Biotechnology  – An Overview of its Standards & Efficiency & Opportunities of Cooperation with Western Companies”. 48. Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na krutom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2 (5), May 2013, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/ news/smi/veterinary/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 49. Kak eto nachinalos’ … Timiryazevskaya akademiya i sovetskii Atomnyi proekt, https://gorodnica.livejournal.com/34073.html, 14 May 2013, Accessed on the 18 November 2020. 50. Ministerstvo nauki i vyshego obrazovaniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie “Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institute radiologii i agroekologii”, Scientific Archive of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Information System of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISARAN), http:// isaran.r u/?q=r u/fund&guid=C16E22C1-­C B84-­4 BE5-­A EB0-­ FBBB8DBF3A9A&ida=42, Accessed on the 18 November 2020. 51. Personal communication with Estonian scientist, Late Blight Related Activities at Monitoring and Diagnosis Stations of Estonian Plant Protection Service Under the Leadership of Headquarter (sic) of Civil Defence, 11 November 2002. 52. Personal communication with Estonian scientist, Activities at Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute in Collaboration of (sic) All Union Institute of Plant Pathology (VNIIF) in Period 1971–1991, 11 November 2002.

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53. Kongo v XX veke, http://www.hrono.ru/land/1900kong.html, Accessed on the 9 March 2020. 54. Photo # 5613446, http://visualrian.ru/media/5613446.html, Accessed on the 9 March 2020. 55. Inauguration of the Veterinary Scientific Laboratory, Bulletin Quotidien de L’aci, 27 July 1977, pp.  1 B, 2 B, translated in Translations on Sub-­ Saharan Africa, No. 1842, Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS-70254, 30 November 1977, pp. 47–48. 56. Burdovu aleksandru nikolaevichu—90 let, Veterinarnaya segodnya, No. 3 (18), 2016, http://rsn-­msk.ru/files/veterinary-­18-­2016.pdf, Accessed on the 9 March 2020. 57. Dumnov, D., Lyusov, V., Agriculture in the People’s Republic of Congo, Ekonomika sel’skogo khozyaystva, No. 9, September 1977, pp.  112–115, translated in Translations on Sub-Saharan Africa, No. 1849, US Joint Publications Research Service, 13 December 1977, p. 54. 58. Rakhmanov, A.M., Glushko, B.A., Voennoe pokolenie sotrudnikov vsesoyuznogo nauchno-issledovatel’skogo yashchurnogo instituta— FGBU “Federal’nyi tsentr okhrany zdorov’ya zhivotnykh” (k 70-letiyu Pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine), p. 8 in Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(13), May 2015, p. 4, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/news/smi/ veterinary/veterinary-­13-­2015.pdf, Accessed on the 30 May 2019. 59. Soglashenie mezhdu pravitel’stvom soyuza sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh respublik i imperatorskim efiopskim pravitel’stvom ob organizatsii nauchnoi fitopatologicheskoi laboratorii, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, https://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/international_ contracts/2_contract/-­/ storage-­v iewer/bilateral/page-­5 44/58747, Accessed on the 11 November 2020; Agreement on Establishment of Scientific Phytopathology Laboratory, 3 May 1972, International Environmental Agreements (IEA) Database Project, https://iea.uoregon. edu/treaty/1961, Accessed on the 11 November 2020; Ambo Research Centre, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), http:// www.eiar.gov.et/ambo-­plant-­protection-­research-­center, Accessed on the 20 September 2019; The USSR—Ethiopia: Shoulder to Shoulder, Soviet Military Review, No. 3, March 1982, p. 48. 60. Research Papers Presented at National Conferences, International Congresses and Symposia, Scientific Phytopathological Laboratory, USSR Ministry of Agriculture, Ambo, Ethiopia, 1984, p. 6, http://197.156.72.153:8080/ xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/3174/018%20 RESEARCHPAPERS%20PRESENTED%20AT%20NATIONAL%20 CONFERENCES%20INTERNATIONAL%20CONGRESSES%20 AND%20SYMPOSIA.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, Accessed on the 11 November 2020.

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61. Iskanderov, I.I., Glavnyi orientir—uskorenie sotsial’no-­ekonomicheskogo razvitiya, Obshchestvennye nauki uzbekistane, 1985, https://archive.nyu. edu/bitstream/2451/42994/1/isawdca_000524.pdf, Accessed on the 9 March 2020. 62. K stoletiyu FGBNU “FITs kartofelya imeni A.G. Lorkha”, Kartofel’naya Sistema, 20 September 2020, https://potatosystem.ru/k-­stoletiyu­fgbnu/, Accessed on the 13 November 2020. 63. Research Papers Presented at National Conferences, pp. 6–15. 64. K stoletiyu FGBNU “FITs kartofelya imeni A.G. Lorkha”. 65. An example of such international transfers concerns the Institute of Tropical Medicine (Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde)—ITM—in Antwerp. It provided both Marburg virus (the Voege isolate or MARVVoe) and Ebola virus (the Mayinga isolate or ZEBOV-May) to researchers in Belarus. The variants of the viruses were subsequently transferred to a Biopreparat facility in Siberia. Information provided by scientists within Group of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Scientific-Research Institute of Epidemiology & Microbiology, Minsk, 18 February 1997. See also Kuhn, J.H., Filoviruses: A Compendium of 40 Years of Epidemiological, Clinical, and Laboratory Studies, Springer-Verlag, Wien, 2008, p.  54, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­211-­69495-­4, Accessed on the 28 September 2020. 66. For a full discussion of Soviet agriculture at this time see Harrison, M., Stalinism and the Economics of Wartime. This paper was prepared for the international conference on “The History of Stalinism: Research Problems and Results”, Moscow, 5–7 December 2008, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/ soc/economics/staf f/mharrison/public/stalinism_en_2011.pdf, Accessed on the 19 September 2019. First draft: 1 December 2008. This version: 9 December 2008. 67. Strainitsy istorii. 68. Information supplied by former Soviet senior anti-crop scientist, 16 February 2001. 69. Interviews with former Soviet anti-crop scientists, 13 June 2003 and 12 October 2003. 70. Interview with former Soviet anti-crop scientists, 12 October 2003. 71. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Interview with scientist from the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, December 2003. 75. Ibid.

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76. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 77. Istoriya, Nauchno-issledovatel’skii institute problem biologicheskoi bezopasnosti, http://www.biosafety.kz/, Accessed on the 4 March 2020. 78. Istoricheskaya spravka, Volginskii branch clinic of the Federal Medical-­ Biological Agency (no date of publication), http://volginskfmba.ru, Accessed on the 7 December 2020. 79. Information provided by former senior anti-crop scientist, Plant Immunity Research Institute. Interview conducted at the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1630, 31 October 2000. 80. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (Director), main building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 81. Ibid. 82. Information regarding the meeting at Chimgan-Tashkent provided by former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology, London, 31 September 2004. Numbers in attendance estimated from group photograph detailing participants at the event. 83. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 75. 84. Istoriya FGUP “VNIIKHSZR”, http://vniihszr.ru/history, Accessed on the 29 May 2019. 85. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 71. See also Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 754, Note 43. 86. Interview with senior staff member, Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 10 December 2002. 87. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, pp. 75–76. 88. Ibid., pp. 73–74. 89. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, pp. 18–19. 90. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 91. Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Ye., Yeleukenov, D., Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 16.

CHAPTER 5

Heart of Darkness: The Creation of Reserve Mobilisation Capacity for Production of Viral Agents

The Soviet System of Mobilisation Preparedness In the early 1920s the Soviet Union established a system of mobilisation preparation (mobilizatsionnaya podgotovka), the central feature of which were the plans drawn up in individual enterprises for the conversion of the economy to wartime needs—for example, for the manufacture of tanks in place of tractors or motor cars. Increasing emphasis was also placed on building up emergency stockpiles of raw materials, energy resources, crucial components, production equipment and contingency plans for the recruitment of labour. Under the system, which became institutionalised during the period of the three five-year plans which preceded the Second World War, it was envisaged that a rapid increase in the production of armaments could be achieved during the initial period of conflict.1 Practically all factories and plants incorporated “Special”, “Mobilisation” or “First” Departments which were branches of the high-level mobilisation apparatus. Although all information relating to the latter is entirely classified, it is known that in order to plan and maintain the system, a substantial bureaucracy was required with every government ministry incorporating a mobilisation department. In addition, it has been revealed that in 1954 a “first” mobilisation department was established under the State Planning Commission, Gosplan. Mobilisation issues were only ever discussed openly in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and the topic remained subject to the highest level of state secrecy. There is no record © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_5

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available of the numbers of personnel directly involved or details of the costs incurred by this vast system.2 As Cooper notes, a key “feature of the Soviet mobilisation system was the obligation of many ostensibly civilian enterprises to prepare to switch rapidly to the manufacture of military goods when required”.3 In addition, a large proportion of defence industry enterprises were engaged in the manufacture of civilian goods, especially electrical, electronic and mechanical products. This allowed part of the overhead costs incurred as a result of obligatory mobilisation requirements to be passed on to the consumers purchasing civil items. In addition, “some of the capacities were effectively dual-use, used in peacetime on a so-called ‘assimilation basis’ to make civilian items”.4 The main focus of the mobilisation system in the post-war period was in preparation for a large-scale conflict with NATO and with the threat of nuclear war. Elements such as reserve centres of government, strategic stockpiles and other infrastructure associated with mobilisation were made invulnerable to nuclear attack by locating them deep underground. Cooper argues that “the breakdown of relations with China, the Vietnam War, an unsigned peace with Japan, and other strategic uncertainties in Asia (also) prompted a more comprehensive approach to mobilisation preparation in the east of the country”.5

The Creation of Reserve Mobilisation Production Facilities for Anti-agricultural Agents The system of mobilisation preparedness was applied with full vigour within the network of ostensibly civil microbiological factories operating within the Soviet Union. In its most extreme form, such “mobilisation capacity” is alleged to have comprised fully outfitted, tested and ready to operate BW production plants, with weapon-filling lines. These were maintained under the auspices of Biopreparat at Berdsk (Novosibirsk oblast’), Kurgan (Kurgan oblast’), Omutninsk (Kirov oblast’), Penza (Penza oblast’) and Stepnogorsk (Akmola oblast’). It was only late in 1991 that the weapon-filling lines were apparently removed from these BW mobilisation facilities, but the rest of the production and processing portions apparently remained intact. Alibek notes that, in sharp contrast to the mainstream anti-personnel programme, anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons were never produced on

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a regular basis by the Soviet Union or stockpiled. Evidence that the USSR Ministry of Defence manufactured and subsequently maintained stockpiles of some agents, was unearthed at the Vozrozhdenie Island BW test site. Here sometime after the Soviet evacuation, a US team discovered approximately 100–200 tonnes of weaponised B. anthracis spores which had been hastily inactivated and buried. In the case of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, it is likely that, as was the case with the Biopreparat production plant in Stepnogorsk, its mobilisation production facilities had conducted a series of trial production runs for the pathogens they might be required to manufacture in wartime. The principal mobilisation facility for anti-livestock agents was the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Pokrov biologics factory in Vol’ginskii, Vladimir oblast’. The role of this facility in the Soviet biological weapons programme is discussed at length below. It also appears likely that the Soviet Union maintained an unknown number of additional veterinary microbiological facilities in a state of mobilisation preparedness, with tasks connected with the production of BW agents in the event of an outbreak of war. In his account of the Soviet biological warfare programme, Alibek, for example, reports that the Almaty Biocombine, in the Kazakh SSR, was in use at least until the early 1960s as a reserve mobilisation facility for the production of biological weapons based on bacteria, primarily with regard to the production of Bacillus anthracis.6 This major facility had been originally created in 1931.7 In 1958, the plant was reported to have been engaged in the production of vaccines for blackleg, braxy, sheeppox, goatpox, contagious caprine pleuropneumonia, lamb dysentery and anthrax.8 By the late 1980s, the Almaty Biologics Combine had become the second largest veterinary vaccine facility in the Soviet Union and its production plants occupied an area of 30,000 m2.9 Total vaccine output just prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union was recorded at more than 1 million litres of liquid preparations and 511,700,000 doses of dry preparations.10 Facilities at the plant for production of bacterial vaccines included four 250-litre fermenters, two 1000-litre fermenters and three 3500-litre fermenters together with twelve vertical high-capacity centrifuges and fifteen freeze driers (with 1500 × 15 ml vials).11 Bacillus anthracis production at the Almaty Biocombine is likely to have been enormous with two preparations being manufactured, the STI live anthrax vaccine and the VNIIVViM live anthrax vaccine.12 The facility was a monopolistic supplier of a whole range of agricultural vaccines in the USSR and also exported its products to Eastern Europe, China and Egypt.13 Other biologics facilities operating

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within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s system may have also maintained mobilisation facilities but the size of this unidentified reserve capacity, if it exists at all, is unknown. Alibek remains the only source of information available with regard to Soviet capabilities with regard to the production of anti-crop biological weapons. Within the GUNIiEPU network he reports that “several labs in Galitsyno (sic) were involved in research, development and pilot-scale production work”.14 He notes that in contrast to the sophisticated reactor technologies employed in the mainstream BW programme by Biopreparat and other agencies, anti-agricultural weapons were produced using more primitive techniques. For fungal pathogens this involved basic surface cultivation techniques. As Alibek ominously notes, such simple techniques could easily be duplicated by terrorists or other scientifically unsophisticated groups.15 However, no further details are available with regard to either the location of any mobilisation capacity related to anti-crop biological weapons production or the identity of the agents which were scheduled to be produced in wartime.

BW Mobilisation Capacity at the Pokrov Biologics Plant The best-documented of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s mobilisation facilities is that based within the Pokrov Factory of Biological Preparations (Pokrovskii zavod biopreparatov), located 113 km north-east of Moscow in the settlement of Vol’ginskii (Vladimir oblast’). The plant is of especial interest since, uniquely within the network of GUNIiEPU facilities, it appears not to have been solely focused on agricultural agents but also to have had a significant mobilisation role in the mainstream Soviet BW programme. It therefore constitutes the only clear linkage between the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s highly compartmentalised anti-crop and anti-­ animal network and the mainstream BW programme managed by the USSR Ministry of Defence in conjunction with Biopreparat. The CPSU Central Committee and USSR Council of Ministers decree to establish the Pokrov biologics plant is reported to have been issued on 28 October 1967.16 The corresponding order was issued by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture a month later on 20 November with it being envisaged that the new facility would come under the jurisdiction of its Main Administration of Scientific-Research and Experimental-Production

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Establishments (GUNIiEPU). From the immediate outset the project was closely managed by personnel at the adjacent All-Union Scientific-­ Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology (VNIIVViM). S.E. Chetveryakov, the Chief Engineer of VNIIVViM, was, concomitantly, placed in charge of construction.17 Specialists from VNIIVViM, including Professor N.I.  Mitin, N.M.  Urvantsev, N.Z.  Vasilenko and Georgii Anatol’evich Safonov, acted as consultants in the design of the facility.18 In 1974, Valentin Sergeevich Khitrov was appointed head of the biologics plant and he appears to have held this post until his sudden death on 29 January 1979.19 Later, in May 1979, after the plant had become fully operational, Safonov was appointed director, a post he held for the next sixteen years. He too was a major player at VNIIVViM, having joined the institute in 1959 and by June 1978 had risen to the rank of deputy scientific director. Safonov was a capable scientist having been awarded the USSR State Prize in 1982 for his research on the aerosol vaccination of agricultural livestock.20 Large amounts of Western equipment were imported by the Soviet authorities for the equipping of the Pokrov biologics plant. One of the recurrent jokes at the facility was that because of the installation of so much foreign technology, “only the dust is Russian”.21 All this equipment was maintained by Russian engineers in order to avoid the requirement for servicing by Western companies. The first production tasks were assigned to the factory in October 1978 by Major General Mikhail Aleksandrovich Khudyakov, head of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s GUNIiEPU. Initially, production was to focus on eight biological preparations: live vaccines against rinderpest, Aujeszky’s disease, fowl pox, Newcastle disease and canine distemper; killed vaccines against Newcastle disease and avian flu; and vaccine diluents.22 The Pokrov factory was officially commissioned in 1979. It comprised four main areas: production, with ten buildings; storage, comprising six buildings; territory for personnel including living quarters and so on; and a quarantine complex comprising nine buildings. Industrial production of biologics began in Buildings No. 1 and No. 9. Building No. 1 was a viral vaccine production facility which utilised chicken embryos for the cultivation of viruses.23 A building for the production of FMD vaccine was also brought on-stream at the site. By 1 January 1979, the biologics plant employed approximately 1200 personnel, 123 of whom had higher veterinary, biological or medical education. Three hundred and twenty-one personnel were employed in the production buildings alone.24

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During the mid-1970s, US intelligence agencies had become aware of the intense construction activity at the Vol’ginskii site. In June 1976, an anonymous journalist from the Associated Press, using information “leaked” by government sources, included the Pokrov plant in a list of Soviet BW facilities. The journalist’s report did however adopt a cautious approach, noting that “Some intelligence reports the plants as suspected biological warfare production and storage facilities. Other sources say the plants may be making biological-associated products for agricultural purposes, but could be adapted easily to turn out warfare materials.”25 Around eight years later, Jack Anderson, a nationally syndicated columnist, released an additional article on the covert Soviet BW programme. Basing his account on still-classified National Security Council and CIA reports, he also listed the Pokrov facility as a suspected BW site.26 However, despite the deep suspicions of the US intelligence community about the biologics plant, it was not until October 1993 that the first Western inspectors could set foot in Vol’ginskii (see p. 116). In 2009, Safonov, the then director, appeared to touch upon, albeit tangentially, the mobilisation role of the facility. He confirmed that, from the very outset, the Pokrov biologics plant had been assigned two distinct tasks. The first and more conventional role concerned the manufacture and sale of diagnostic and prophylactic preparations against a range of highly dangerous livestock diseases including foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest, classical swine fever and Newcastle disease—“practically all viral infections existent in the Soviet Union”. According to Safonov, the second task entrusted to the plant concerned the “stockpiling (of) necessary reserves of biological preparations for use in emergency measures to combat disease. The plant was part of the special system of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture intended for organising and carrying out efforts to respond to emergency situations arising in the agricultural sphere during outbreaks of especially dangerous diseases. Leading specialists at the plant include(d) scientists working on matters related to eliminating the consequences of unforeseen situations, including biological terrorism.”27 Safonov reports that the plant produced more than 40 biological preparations—most of which were patented—with a value of around US$50 million per annum. The sales of vaccines and the centralised state orders for the creation of vaccine reserves allowed the facility to operate on a self-financing basis, receiving no additional budgetary support from the government.28 Safonov argued that because of the range of viral infectious agents with which the Pokrov plant worked, together with its location in the midst of

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a region with very many livestock farms and enterprises, that there was a necessity for the facility to operate according to a special closed regime. This involved the requirement to show badges or passes, a restriction on visits and the instalment of a security system around the perimeter of the plant.29 Safonov made no linkages between the elaborate security in place at the site and any role it might have as a reserve BW mobilisation facility.

Identification of Mobilisation Capacity at Pokrov by Western Visitors The only concrete evidence regarding the existence of mobilisation capacity at Pokrov has been made available as the result of visits in the post-­ Soviet period by Western specialists to the Pokrov biologics plant (see Fig. 5.1). The first opportunity to make an on-site inspection of the facility came about after a meeting in Moscow by the US, Russia and the UK and the release on 14 September 1992 of a Trilateral Statement on the status

Fig. 5.1  View of bunkered facilities at Pokrov biologics factory, Vol’ginskii, Vladimir oblast’, Russian Federation. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

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of the Russian BW programme. Under its terms, Russia agreed to accept visits to any non-military biological site at any time to remove ambiguities, subject to the need to respect proprietary information.30 In October 1993, the first US-UK teams arrived in Russia to conduct on-site visits to four biological weapons sites. On 2 October, David Kelly, the team’s co-leader, and colleagues arrived at the Pokrov factory in Vol’ginskii and “found a mobilisation capacity production site for viral agents”.31 The visitors are reported to have been stunned when they identified two large production lines with fermenters capable of holding in excess of ten metric tonnes of virus. Virus production at the site was conducted within a network of five underground reinforced concrete bunkers, used both to conceal illicit BW activity and to provide protection against enemy attack. Some, at least, of these bunkers were equipped with row upon row of incubators which held hundreds of thousands of hen’s eggs and were constructed to grow massive quantities of virus in row after row of incubators, in order, allegedly, to sustain a strategic weapons system.32 Bunker 12A was equipped with five-tonne blast doors and possessed an underground laboratory constructed of reinforced concrete and fitted out with equipment for virus production. The bunkers were also equipped with an underground water system which ensured uninterrupted production “in the event of emergencies”.33 Accommodation for weapons-filling lines was also identified at the site.34 A second opportunity for Western experts to assess the extent of mobilisation capacity at Pokrov was made available at a seminar hosted at the plant by the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC) in December 1995. The ISTC had been established by international agreement just over three years earlier with the aim of preventing nuclear proliferation and the proliferation of other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Under its programme, Russian and Newly Independent States (NIS) scientists and engineers with expertise in WMD or missile delivery systems were to be provided with opportunities to redirect their talents to peaceful activities including fundamental research, innovation and commercialisation. Some seven experts from the EU and an additional seven from the US participated in the meeting.35 On the morning of 13 December 1995, the Western delegates were welcomed by the director of the biologics plant, Georgii Anatol’evich Safonov, who delivered a presentation on anthrax prevention and control. Later, on the afternoon of the same day, they were invited on a tour of the facility by Vladimir Pavlovich Chichkanov (a deputy director).36 During the inspection he noted that an

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underground bunker complex housed an effluent treatment facility. He stated that it had been placed underground in order that personnel could continue to work “under extreme conditions” for “civil defence purposes” and “not for military use”. The only other on-site inspection which has been detailed in the literature concerns a visit to the Pokrov facility at the end of May 2002 by Senators Bob Graham and Senator Barbara Mikulski, along with more than 70 other participants. The visit formed part of a congressional trip to mark the tenth anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar Act. Graham notes that at this time “the newest buildings in the complex were built primarily underground. … Despite the fact that Pokrov never officially was linked to the Soviet military or Biopreparat, the Soviet Union’s secret biological weapons programme, the new buildings were hardened against nuclear attack, with thick blast doors and reinforced concrete.”37

The Nature of Activity at Pokrov: Linkages to an Alleged Soviet Variola Virus Programme There seems little reason to doubt the evidence for the presence, during the Soviet period, of BW mobilisation capacity at the Pokrov biologics plant. It undoubtedly comprised GUNIiEPU’s main reserve production facility for anti-livestock agents.38 However, we are left on much more uncertain ground with regard to the precise pathogens which were scheduled to be produced in the event of a national emergency when war was imminent. These may have included rinderpest and FMD viruses which were the focus of intense research and testing activity by the Ekologiya network but there is simply no additional information available to confirm this supposition. Alibek argues that the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW programme was not confined to the development of anti-livestock and anti-crop BW agents but that it also overlapped with the mainstream anti-personnel BW programme pursued by the USSR Ministry of Defence and Biopreparat. According to him “the combined anti-personnel/anti-livestock agents included anthrax and psittacosis”.39 There is no corroborating evidence available to support Alibek’s assertion although clearly agents such as B. anthracis, known to be the focus of study within GUNIiEPU facilities, could be directed against both human and animal targets. Alibek also claims specifically that Pokrov incorporated a mobilisation facility for the

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large-scale production of variola virus (the causative agent of smallpox) and Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV), “as well as other viral weapons”.40 During his 1993 visit to Pokrov, David Kelly is reported by Mangold to have concluded that the bunker he inspected had been established “to grow ‘massive quantities’ of smallpox. The only reason for having such a large amount of that virus, he adds, would be to ‘sustain a strategic weapons system’.”41 Kelly is reported to have departed Pokrov with the feeling that this was “the most sinister facility” he had visited in Russia. However, Zilinskas and Leitenberg, in their later description of the visit, note only that the mobilisation capacity at Pokrov “was assumed to have been intended primarily for producing variola virus”.42 In his 2001 monograph, Tucker revisits the role of the Pokrov facility in the alleged Soviet programme focused on variola virus. He describes how a group of scientists at the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-­ Research Sanitary Institute in Zagorsk (since renamed Sergiev Posad), led by Colonel Igor’ Vladimirovich Nikonov and Colonel V.V. Zezerov, are reported to have elaborated a standardised procedure for producing variola virus in fertilised chicken eggs.43 During the 1970s the Soviet military are reported to have ordered that up to 20 metric tonnes of virus suspension be maintained in refrigerated storage at the Sergiev Posad site. Tucker further reports that the military egg-based technology for the production of variola virus was subsequently scaled up and transferred to the Pokrov facility from the MOD institute in Sergiev Posad. This backup production line would “permit the manufacture of even larger quantities of variola virus in wartime”.44 Certainly, if Tucker’s account reflects reality, then it must have been apparent to the Soviet military that it would be much easier to conceal their egg-based viral production process within an ostensibly civilian veterinary vaccine facility than a dedicated MOD institute; such a plant could legitimately consume vast quantities of eggs with no requirement for elaborate deception measures. However, despite all the detail, provided by Alibek and later by Tucker, there remains a lack of hard evidence. Leitenberg and Zilinskas, in their authoritative account of the Soviet BW programme, are much more cautious regarding precise knowledge of the programme, stating only that “variola virus was a well-studied first-generation Soviet BW agent. It was probably mass-produced at Zagorsk using embryonated eggs, though this is not known for sure. As has been noted previously, little information about BW R&D at MOD institutes is publicly known.”45

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As with the anti-crop and anti-livestock network as a whole, there remains a raft of unanswered questions with regard to the Pokrov biologics plant. It appears likely, for example, that the facility was, from its very inception, slated by the Soviet authorities for a major military role. This would focus on the maintenance of reserve mobilisation capacity, which could be used in wartime for the production of viral agents. This would include agents developed in other parts of the Ekologiya network and may also have embraced agents created by facilities subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Defence. There is scant evidence available with regard to the precise identity of the viral agents. The plant also played a key part in the delivery of civil agricultural vaccines to the Soviet livestock sector. Such a juxtaposition of key civil and military roles might be regarded as surprising by Western observers but in fact formed part of a Soviet mobilisation mindset which had been in place in the USSR since the 1920s.

Delivery Systems for Weaponised Agricultural BW Agents There is no reliable information at all with regard to one of the most crucial questions concerning the Ekologiya programme. Which delivery systems were to be employed to allow the agricultural BW agents developed by the network to be used against enemy crops and herds of livestock? Did the Soviet Union succeed in developing specialised technology, similar say to the E77 feather bomb developed by the US agricultural BW programme, for the dispersal of plant or animal pathogens? By the end of 1953, the US had distributed some 2500 such biological munitions containing wheat stem rust to Strategic Air Command bomber bases. These were intended for use against the wheat crops of the Soviet Union.46 The US had also developed four weapons systems for delivery of anti-livestock BW agents including spray tanks, balloon bombs (considered a strategic weapon) and particulate bombs.47 Given the scale of the USSR’s later effort in agricultural biowarfare, then it might be reasonably expected that Ekologiya scientists or their colleagues in the military would develop similar dispersal systems of their own. Possibly, as in the Biopreparat network, specific institutes were assigned a role with regard to the development of munitions for the delivery of the Soviet Union’s agricultural BW agents. However, if such systems were created, they were kept a closely guarded secret by the Soviet authorities and the details remain hidden within closed

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military archives. Similarly, there is no indication as to whether sabotage attacks using anti-crop and/or anti-livestock BW agents—which had been widely employed by Germany during the First World War—were ever considered by the Soviet military. Alibek, who had some limited interaction with the agricultural network, remains the sole source of information with regard to this critically important aspect of the Ekologiya programme. In his book, he claims that the agricultural BW agents “like anti-personnel biological weapons were designed to be sprayed from tanks attached to Ilyushin bombers and flown over a target area along a straight line for hundreds of miles”.48 Such technology he argued had already been employed in the Soviet Union for the dissemination of chemical anti-crop agents. Very large areas of farmland could thereby be covered using such a “line source” approach. The infection of only a few animals using this method would be sufficient since the subsequent spread of disease could be expected to “wipe out agricultural activity over a wide area in a matter of months”.49 Elsewhere, Alibek refers to the existence of a specialised squadron of medium-range bombers, specialising in the delivery of biological agents, based in the Volga region.50 Clearly, such a unit posed little or no threat to Western Europe or the US but might conceivably have had a role in any conflict which should arise with China. Mangold and Goldberg, meanwhile, assert more broadly that for long-­ range attacks with biological weapons in Europe and America, the Soviet Union’s primary strategic bomber was the TU-95 (referred to as the “Bear” by NATO) with a payload of cluster bomb munitions carrying multiple BW bomblets.51 It is unknown whether it was ever the intention to use such aircraft with regard to agricultural BW agents. It should also be stressed that, again, there is no other public corroboration from any Russian or Western source with regard to Soviet BW delivery capabilities and clearly additional evidence is required prior to accepting the veracity of this account.

Notes 1. Cooper, J., If War Comes Tomorrow: How Russia Prepares for Possible Armed Aggression, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, Whitehall Report 4-16, August 2016, p. 3, https://rusi. org/sites/default/files/201608_whr_4_16_if_war_comes_tomorrow. pdf, Accessed on the 5 February 2020.

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2. Shlykov, V.V., The Soviet System of Mobilization Preparedness, in Genin, V.E. (Ed.), The Anatomy of Russian Defense Conversion, Vega Press, Walnut Creek, California, 2001, p. 68. 3. Cooper, J., If War Comes Tomorrow, p. 4. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., p. 7. 6. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, p. 19; and Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 38. 7. National Centre on (sic) Biotechnology Republic of Kazakhstan, Information leaflet provided to author at Branch of the National Biotechnology Centre, National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Experimental Biology, Almaty, 21 April 1995. 8. Veterinary Science in the Soviet Union: Report of a Technical Study Group. 9. National Centre on (sic) Biotechnology Republic of Kazakhstan. 10. Yuferev, O.V., Meditsinskaya promyshlennost’, Biznes-karta 93, Agenstvo Delovoi Informatsii, Moscow, 1993, p. 47. 11. Information provided by management representative of Almaty Biocombine, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 11 July 1995. 12. See also Perechen’ biopreparatov, vypuskaemykh Almatinskim biokombinatom, list of products in Russian and Preparates (sic) produced by the Almaty Biocombination (sic), both provided by Kairbek Temirbolatovich Sharapidenov (Director), 26 April 1995. 13. Information provided by Kairbek Temirbolatovich Sharapidenov (Director) and Stanislav Mikhailovich Abakov (Deputy Director), Almaty Biocombine, Almaty, 26 April 1995. 14. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, p. 19. 15. Ibid. 16. Istoriya predpriyatiya, Pokrovskii zavod biopreparatov, Official website of the Pokrov biologics factory (undated), http://www.pokrovbio.ru/history.php, Accessed on the 7 December 2020. 17. Safonov, G.A. (Ed.), Zashchishchaya zhivotnykh i cheloveka: Pokrovskomu zavodu biopreparatov tridtsat’ let, Unknown publisher, Orekhovo-Zuevo (Moscow oblast’), 1999, pp.  9–10. Only 500 copies of this publication were ever produced. 18. Ibid., p. 17. 19. Ibid., p. 10. 20. Ibid., p. 51. 21. Discussions with former staff member at ISTC seminar, Pokrov, Russian Federation, 10 August 1994. 22. Safonov, G. A. (Ed.), Zashchishchaya zhivotnykh i cheloveka, p. 100. 23. From 1977 to 1991, V.G. Makarevich (Candidate of Veterinary Sciences) was Director of this facility. Ibid., p. 20.

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24. Ibid., p. 19. 25. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with  Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, pp. 380–381. 26. Anderson, J., Van Atta, D., How Russia Fights with Poison and Plague, Reader’s Digest, Vol. 125, No. 750, October 1984, p. 59. 27. Safonov, G.A., Gavrilov, V.A., Problems of Biological Security in Agriculture, pp. 51–60 in Schweitzer, G., Fox, M. (Eds.), Russian Views on Countering Terrorism During Eight Years of Dialogue: Extracts from Proceedings of Four US-Russian Workshops, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2009, https://www.nap.edu/read/12629/chapter/1, Accessed on the 4 February 2019. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Kelly, D., The Trilateral Agreement: Lessons for Biological Weapons Verification, p.  97  in Verification Yearbook 2002, Verification, Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), London, 2002, http:// www.vertic.org/media/Archived_Publications/Yearbooks/2002/VY02_ Kelly.pdf, Accessed on the 1 February 2019. 31. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with  Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 648. 32. Mangold, T., Goldberg, J., Plague Wars: A True Story of Biological Warfare, Macmillan, Oxford, 1999, pp. 197–198. 33. Warwick, J., Russia’s poorly guarded past, The Washington Post, 17 June 2002, p. A01, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/06/17/russias-­poorly-­guarded-­past/603c3de9-­22f5-­493f-­ be5b-­fc31eb938a9d/?utm_term=.1ee50df14303, Accessed on the 29 March 2019. 34. Kelly, D., The Trilateral Agreement, p. 99. 35. Compton, J., Pobedimskaya, D., Redirection of BW experts in the framework of the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC), p.  160  in Geissler, E., Gazsό, L., Buder, E., Conversion of Former BTW Facilities, Kluwer Academic Publishers, London, 1998. 36. International Symposium (Sponsored by the International Science and Technology Centre), Importance of Collaboration Under National and International Programmes in Control of Severe Zooanthroponoses, Development of Vaccines Against Severe Infections: Ethical Aspects of Clinical and Preclinical Trials, The Pokrov Plant of Biopreparations, Pokrov, the Vladimir Region, Version 6, 11–16 December 1995. 37. Graham, B., Nussbaum, J., Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America’s War on Terror, Random House, New York, 2004, pp. 128–131.

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38. According to Alibek it was a “Reserve facility for antilivestock BW”. See Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 301. 39. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, p. 18. 40. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 301. 41. Mangold, T., Goldberg, J., Plague Wars, pp. 197–198. 42. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with  Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 648. 43. Tucker, J.B., Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2001, pp. 141–142. 44. Ibid., pp. 142–147. 45. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with  Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 223. 46. Leitenberg, M., State-Level vs. Substate Programs Utilizing AntiPlant and Anti-Animal BW Agents, Agro-Terrorism: What Is the Threat?, pp. 48–49. 47. These delivery systems are discussed in Millett, P., Antianimal Biological Weapons Programmes in Wheelis, M., Lajos, R., Dando, M. (Eds.), Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, Harvard University Press, London, 2006, p. 227. 48. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 38. 49. Ibid. 50. Tucker, J.B., Biological Weapons in the Former Soviet Union: An Interview with Dr Kenneth Alibek, The Nonproliferation Review, Spring/Summer 1999, pp. 2–3, https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-­content/uploads/ npr/alibek63.pdf, Accessed on the 11 December 2020. 51. Mangold, T., Goldberg, J., Plague Wars, p. 94.

CHAPTER 6

Through a Glass Darkly: Analysis of the Soviet Union’s Military Agricultural R&D Programmes

Western Intelligence Assessments of the Soviet Agricultural Biowarfare Programme A number of senior plant pathologists within the former GUNIiEPU network report that they were simply engaged in studying resistance to virulence. However, it must be stressed that there is a fine line between such legitimate research and studies focusing on virulence and, potentially, enhancement of virulence. Western knowledge of the military agricultural R&D programmes undertaken by the Soviet Union is extremely limited. The Ekologiya network was highly compartmentalised and its work classified and there have been no high-level defectors to the West to provide a knowledgeable and detailed account of the agricultural BW programme. Alibek and Domaradskii, who both occupied high-level positions within Biopreparat and were willing to divulge information on Soviet offensive activities, are able to provide merely the scantest account of the Soviet effort in this area. The only substantive declassified intelligence to emerge regarding the agricultural BW research underway in the Soviet Union is contained in a 1977 report by the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Chemical and Biological Warfare Capabilities–USSR. Even then, its contents have not been released on the web and can only be partially accessed via an academic paper published by Jonathan Ban.1 Drawing from the report the latter notes that “the former Soviet Union probably had the most © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_6

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innovative and wide-reaching offensive anti-crop and anti-animal BW programmes, although the primary focus was on agents for targeting American and Western European crops. On the anti-animal side, the Soviets experimented with FMD, rinderpest, African swine fever (ASF), vesicular stomatitis virus, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, mutants of avian influenza, and contagious ecthyma of sheep. The Soviets successfully used ticks to transmit FMD, avian ticks to transmit the causal agent of ornithosis to chickens, and insects to transmit plant pathogens. On the anti-plant side, work was conducted on wheat and barley mosaic streak viruses, potato virus, tobacco mosaic virus, brown grass mosaic virus (for use against barley, maize, and thornapple), wheat fungal, and brown leaf rust. Viability testing in indoor chambers was conducted on FMD, and as early as 1935, tests were conducted to develop reliable methods of disseminating FMD in combat situations. Lyophilisation and vacuum storage experiments were conducted on maize rust, and stabilisation techniques for Newcastle disease virus were also discovered. The Soviets were very active in insect rearing techniques and claimed to have built automated mass rearing facilities that could produce millions of parasitic insects per day. They used radar to follow the migration and release patterns of insects to determine their anti-crop potential, and the dissemination of insect attractants was considered a way of influencing the migration patterns of both natural and deliberately introduced insects.”2 The DIA report discusses Soviet work on aerosols and again points to the potential military applications of such work: “Treatment of fields and forests by aircraft to control pests, diseases, and weeds in the Soviet Union provides data applicable to offensive agricultural warfare. The aerosolization process provides information on the efficiency of spraying or dispersal devices and on the most efficient methods for dispersal of wet and dry agents under varied climatic conditions. The amount of material, dispersal rate, and particle size are primary factors in the resultant cloud travel, cloud diffusion, and area coverage.”3 The DIA’s sources for this analysis apparently comprise open Soviet journal literature which was published as civil research. Leitenberg argues that “all of the work referred to in the DIA report and summarised above can very well be applicable for the military use of the respective plant and animal pathogens as weapons. However, the same would be true of civil research on the same agents in any other country in the world.”4 The following sections seek to penetrate a little more deeply into the research

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conducted by GUNIiEPU facilities on a range of key veterinary and plant pathogens, perhaps providing some insight into the military programmes which were pursued by the secret Soviet network.

Central Asia’s “Sverdlovsk Incident”? The Rinderpest (Cattle Plague) Programme and the First Major Disease Outbreak from an Ekologiya Laboratory Rinderpest or cattle plague was a contagious viral disease of antiquity in Europe and Asia, in its severest form capable of killing 95 per cent or more of the animals it infected (see Fig. 6.1).5 After the initiation of a global eradication programme, the disease was declared eradicated on 25 May 2011.6 Alibek identifies rinderpest as one of the viruses studied by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture as an offensive biological weapon.7 Certainly,

Fig. 6.1  Rinderpest outbreak in South Africa, 1896. Photographer: Unknown, public domain, created on the 17 February 2011, Wikimedia Commons, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rinderpest_1896-CN.jpg#/media/ File:Rinderpest 1896-CN.jpg

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the control of the disease was an early priority in the wake of the October Revolution. The collapse of the veterinary control system in Imperial Russia during the First World War had led to a break in the protective quarantine zone which had been established in Transcaucasia. By 1920 a large number of cattle are reported to have been infected with rinderpest. On 28 April 1921, the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture despatched letters, signed by Lenin, to all provincial executive committees “stressing that rinderpest causing great harm to state and peasant farms, along with other epizootics, was deepening the economic crisis”.8 The lead role in combatting the rinderpest outbreak was given to the State Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine (GIEV) in conjunction with Anti-­ Rinderpest Stations which had been established in Stavropol’, Zurnabad and Chita. Healthy animals were protected via simultaneous inoculations with “an active antirinderpest serum and virus of rinderpest”. By 1927–1928, rinderpest had been completely eliminated from the territory of the USSR.9 Soviet military interest in rinderpest may have arisen as a result of learning of German offensive BW programmes focused on the virus. As detailed above (see p. 19), on 2 May 1945, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky occupied Riems Island and took possession of the Insel Riems State Research Institute. There they learnt that German scientists and military officials had become concerned that the Allies were engaged in research on rinderpest with a view to creating possible weapons of war. In June 1942 for example, an agent reported that “work on BW in the US was concentrated on rinderpest, rather than on foot and mouth disease, anthrax or glanders”.10 There were also reports that the US had experimented with rinderpest dispersal and transmission via aircraft in Texas. A year later, Hanns-Christoph Nagel, the BW expert of the Veterinary Inspectorate of the army, and a former staff member at Riems, noted “the possibility of reprisals against Germany should she start BW by spreading foot and mouth disease … (and) America might disseminate rinderpest which would have catastrophic results”.11 Just a month or two later a secret August 1943 German intelligence report detailing Anglo-American preparations for bacterial warfare stated that the Allies could “use the virus of cattle plague as a means of warfare”.12 Finally, in September 1943, another intelligence report noted that “especially advanced … is the (allied) cooperative work … on dissemination methods for rinderpest”.13

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It was against this background that in 1944 Germany launched its own programme focused on rinderpest. One of the chief architects of the rinderpest programme was Professor Kurt Blome, a cancer researcher, who had been made responsible for the coordination of biological and toxin warfare activities by Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, President of the State Research Council. The newly created network of facilities and individuals operating under cover of cancer research was known as the Blome network.14 In February–March 1944, Blome, a Nazi activist, met with one of his leading patrons, Himmler. The latter was one of the few Nazi enthusiasts for biological warfare. He agreed to assist Blome with obtaining strains of rinderpest which Germany did not possess at this time. Sometime after this a strain was procured in Turkey and Blome, after consultation with Professor Waldmann with regard to methods of drying and preservation of the virus, despatched Erich Traub (pp. 20–21), a virologist, who was second in command at the institute in Riems, to collect the sample. According to McVety, “Traub returned to Riems with the virus and there, in an old building isolated from the main institute, an attempt was made to infect some cattle by rubbing the virus on their nose and mouth. One animal was sick, but recovered and the others were unaffected. Further work was therefore impossible as the strain had proved avirulent. On reporting this to Himmler at a later meeting, Blome was told that attempts would be made to secure another strain but he heard no more concerning the matter.”15 The Soviets succeeded in capturing Traub and undoubtedly became well informed with regard to the secret German rinderpest programme. In August 1945, during the invasion of Manchuria, they also captured a number of Japanese scientists associated with Unit 100, a major veterinary offensive BW facility located in the north-eastern city of Changchun (Hsinking). In 1936, the Kwantung Army Antiepizootic Protection of Horses Unit was established by imperial decree at Mokotan, around 6 kilometres south of Changchun. Known as the “Wakamatsu Unit”, and later, for purposes of military secrecy, to be designated as Unit 100, the facility was ostensibly created to focus on disease prevention in animals with utility for the Kwantung Army. However, in reality its real role was to expand research on anti-crop and anti-animal biological weapons. Unit 100s campsite is reported to have occupied an area of approximately 20 square kilometres. It embraced a large two-storey headquarters building incorporating underground tunnels to other laboratory sites and several dozen other buildings. Among them were three large red-brick stables

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each holding fifty horses, and other stables housing oxen and sheep. The facility is reported to have employed between 600 and 800 personnel, and between 1936 and 1945 leading bacteriologists, zoologists and veterinarians from Japan served tours of duty within the complex. The unit also embraced branches in Dalny, Darian, Hailar, Kershan, Lagu and Rako Station (with additional satellite branches later being created at Dongan, Dongning, Jining and Siping).16 Its commander, Major Wakamatsu Yujiro, reported both to the chief of the veterinary service and the director of intelligence operations of the Kwantung Army.17 Unit 100 is reported to have been engaged in large-scale production of rinderpest virus.18 In the spring of 1945, small-scale tests of the agent were conducted in Inner Mongolia. These involved ten calves and were aimed at simulating conditions which would be encountered in biological sabotage operations. The tests are reported to have produced “gratifying results”.19 The Soviet forces in Manchuria captured a number of Unit 100 personnel, including those involved in the rinderpest programme, and again their knowledge with regard to the military potential of this agent is likely to have been enhanced. However, it may not have been until around a decade and a half later that the Soviet Union launched a substantive military programme of its own focused on this disease. As detailed in Chap. 3, a network of dedicated anti-livestock BW facilities was created by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture in 1958. Among those units actively engaged in research on rinderpest were the All-Union Scientific-Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute—VNIYaI (Vladimir oblast’) and the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii), abbreviated to NISKhI.20 The last appears to have been the lead facility in a programme launched in 1959 and incorporated its own dedicated Rinderpest Laboratory. It was equipped with high-containment glove boxes, some of which operated at the highest levels of protection. Colonel Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich Khanduev headed up R&D on rinderpest at NISKhI and he was supported by a number of scientists including two postgraduates newly arrived from Moscow, Ivan Grigor’evich Kekukh and Vladimir Nikolaevich Ivanyushchenkov. The work embraced field trials conducted during the 1960s at a proving ground located not far from the institute.21 Upon Khanduev’s departure from NISKhI in the Autumn of 1965, Ivanyushchenkov was appointed head of the Rinderpest Laboratory. The latter then went on to defend his Candidate’s thesis and later was appointed deputy scientific director at the institute.22

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The Soviet Union succeeded in securing possession of a virulent rinderpest strain, isolated in Kabul in 1961.23 The USSR Ministry of Agriculture may have operated or had access to a Soviet laboratory in the country. It is known, for example, that in 1972 an important Ekologiya virologist, Ivan Fedorovich Vishnyakov, was transferred from VNIIVViM to work in a senior position at the Soviet Veterinary Laboratory in Afghanistan. In any event, the Afghan strain was transferred to NISKhI where it was maintained through 37 cattle passages, and was subsequently attenuated by 70 passages in primary calf kidney cells prior to being introduced as a vaccine in 1978. The new preparation, known as K37/70, is reported to have been used routinely in the border immune belt between the Soviet Union and neighbouring countries, and if required was also used to repulse introductions of rinderpest. The vaccine was extensively tested during its appraisal and later widely used and regarded as safe for use in cattle and yaks. However, it was subsequently discovered that outbreaks of clinical rinderpest occurred in areas where this vaccine had been recently administered. It has since been found that K37/70 can, and has, reverted to virulence and regained the ability to transmit among cattle on more than one occasion.24 The work at NISKhI on the virulent Kabul strain may be linked to a major rinderpest outbreak which began on 8 August 1963 in Otar, located some 6  km south of Gvardeiskii. According to a progress report to the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers on countermeasures against rinderpest, prepared by Ivan Platonovich Volovchenko, USSR Minister of Agriculture, “the most likely source of infection was the Dzhambul’ Agricultural Research Institute, where work on rinderpest has been conducted since 1959. The Ministry is trying to identify both the source and those responsible. … To prevent the possibility of rinderpest escaping from the premises of the Dzhambul’ Agricultural Research Institute, measures are underway to enhance sanitary procedures at the institute and to renovate facilities where work with especially hazardous infections is conducted.” 25 It appears highly likely that Colonel Khanduev’s sudden departure from NISKhI in 1965 came in the wake of the fallout from this outbreak. According to Volovchenko’s report, on 2 October 1963, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture rapidly established a Commission both with the aim of eliminating the disease from Otar and identifying the source of infection. It established that the first cases appeared in cattle owned by individuals in Otar and that the disease was initially diagnosed as

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leptospirosis. It was not until 26 September that researchers at NISKhI diagnosed the disease as rinderpest. No rinderpest cases had previously been recorded in the town. Otar had in fact been used by NISKhI to test its aluminium hydroxide vaccine against rinderpest. In the previous three years local cattle had been vaccinated with the NISKhI preparation. The most recent round had taken place in April 1963 when some 251 out of 393 head of cattle had been vaccinated. After the initial cases, the disease is reported to have spread with 121 head of cattle becoming infected in the period between 8 August and 15 October. Of these cases, 40 animals perished, 35 had to be slaughtered, 32 were seized and destroyed and only 14 recovered. It was later discovered that the meat of infected animals had been consumed by their owners and supplied to cafeterias in Frunze (Kyrgyzstan) and at the nearby Roslavskii State Farm. One factor delaying the initial diagnosis was that the disease affected both the animals that had been vaccinated against rinderpest and those that had not.26 Such was the concern of the Soviet authorities with regard to the threat posed to the wider USSR of the Otar outbreak, that the Kazakh SSR Council of Ministers established an Extraordinary Commission under B.N. Dvoretsky, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Under his command, personnel from NISKhI in conjunction with staff from the Kurday Veterinary Hospital began to implement a number of measures to eliminate the disease and prevent its spread. These included the quarantining of Otar with the establishment of five military checkpoints to monitor all types of transport and human traffic; both passenger trains and trains carrying cattle were prohibited from halting at Otar railway station; a special veterinary-sanitary quarantine team was established and equipped with decontamination materials and appropriate equipment; cattle infected with rinderpest were seized from their owners and destroyed with the carcasses of deceased animals being burned.27 The seriousness of the rinderpest outbreak can be judged by the calibre of the officials despatched by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture to deal with the crisis. From 5–7 October 1963 both Arkadii Arkadievich Boiko and Academician Vasilii Niklolaevich Syurin were present in Otar. The latter was the head of the entire GUNIiEPU BW network (see pp. 38–39). Boiko was Chairman of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Veterinary Collegium, and as such, the highest veterinary official in the Soviet Union.28 Boiko and Syurin subsequently reported on the measures being implemented at Otar to both Comrade Subbotin, Chairman of the Kazakh SSR Council of Ministers and to the Chief of the Agricultural Section of

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the Central Committee of the Kyrgyz Communist Party. By 4 November 1963, Volovchenko, the USSR Minister of Agriculture, was able to report that the outbreak had been eliminated.29 The threat of disease outbreaks from Ekologiya facilities was not confined to Gvardeiskii. On 30 May 1963, just a few months prior to the rinderpest outbreak, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture had issued Order No. 113-15ss which sought to curtail the unauthorised transportation of highly dangerous infectious agents outside the secure areas of GUNIiEPU anti-animal institutes. Among the facilities identified as having undertaken this prohibited activity were both NISKhI and VNIIVViM (Vol’ginskii). Several instances of disease in livestock held outside the area of the institutes had been recorded as a result.30 Clearly the ministry’s order came too late to prevent the outbreak of rinderpest in Otar. The technology for the production of the NISKhI rinderpest vaccine appears eventually to have been transferred to the Pokrov biologics factory (Vol’ginskii). In October 1978, Major General Mikhail Aleksandrovich Khudyakov, head of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s GUNIiEPU, instructed the plant to begin the production of a live vaccine against rinderpest—presumably the preparation developed originally in Gvardeiskii.31 NISKhI was also engaged in work on the development of an aerosol vaccine against rinderpest. A key worker, Seidigapbar Mamadalievich Mamadaliev, completed his doctoral thesis on technology associated with this form of vaccination. Another scientist, Evgenii Nikolaevich Troitskyi, completed his candidate’s thesis on aerosol vaccination. Trials demonstrated that large agricultural buildings, with their windows and doors sealed, could be made ready for aerosol vaccination within a period of two hours. Two or three aerosol generators could then be installed and the vaccination of livestock be completed within a 30-minute period.32

The Pursuit of FMD Research Programmes by VNIYaI According to Soviet accounts, Imperial Russia made little attempt to control outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease which were of a mild form and only caused fatalities in juvenile or emaciated cattle. As detailed above (see p.  14), the Soviet Union initiated the first serious scientific research on FMD in 1926 at the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) State Experimental Veterinary Institute located in Moscow. The Soviet

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military’s subsequent interest during the 1930s and 1940s in evaluating the FMD virus as a potential biological weapon is also explored in detail above. Soviet awareness of the Cold War agricultural BW programme in the US which included a major focus on FMD is likely to have been a major driver in the creation on 20 August 1958 of the All-Union Scientific-­ Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute (VNIYaI) in the settlement of Yur’evets. Alibek reports that after its formation in the late 1950s, VNIYaI was engaged in research and development aimed at the weaponisation of the FMD virus.33 Domaradskii, meanwhile, indicates that the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology—VNIIVViM—(Vol’ginskii) was also engaged in research focused on the development of biological weapons based on FMD virus.34 The Soviet FMD R&D programme was expanded in 1971 with the opening of a major new Caucasus Branch of VNIYaI in the outskirts of Yerevan. This “closed” facility was created on the basis of a local veterinary institute which had been in existence since 1930. There were significant transfers of personnel from the veterinary institute at Gvardeiskii to Yerevan. In 1980 for example, Professor Anufriev (see pp. 89–90), head of a laboratory at NISKhI and a winner of the USSR State Prize, was transferred to Armenia and appointed director of the Yerevan branch of VNIYaI. The institute is reported to have investigated the possibilities of the airborne transmission of pathogenic agents and transmission via insects and so on.35 US intelligence reports also indicate that the Soviets subsequently conducted successful experiments to transmit FMD via ticks.36 The Yerevan branch incorporated its own facilities for the production of liquid nitrogen used in the storage of pathogenic viruses.37 It also incorporated significant industrial capacity for the production of vaccines. It manufactured vaccines against FMD, Newcastle disease and rabbit haemorrhagic disease. Its concentrated FMD vaccine was supplied to farms across Georgia.38 A second Central Asian Branch was also established by VNIYaI in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.39 This facility is reported to have employed 150 personnel.40

Construction of FMD Vaccine Facilities by the Soviet Union There may have been some significant benefits for the civil agricultural sector deriving from the Soviet military’s focus on FMD. For example, in the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union made the decision to embark upon a massive expansion of its industrial capacity to produce FMD vaccine.

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Clearly, at least part of the Soviet FMD programme was aimed at shutting-­ down obsolete production of lapinised FMD vaccine in a number of factories distributed across the Soviet Union and centralising production within a small number of very large-scale plants equipped with modern technologies. In addition, Soviet livestock herds were extremely large at this time (in 1979, e.g., 114.4 million cattle and 148.8 million sheep and goats) and there may have been legitimate grounds for establishing such high volumes of production within such a short time frame.41 There may also have been the additional desire, through this massive expansion of FMD vaccine capacity, to strengthen the Soviet Union’s capacity to defend itself against any attacks employing this viral agent. The crash production programme was initiated with the issue of a decree by Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin (Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers) in 1973 for the construction of a massive new FMD vaccine facility at the Shchelkovo Biocombine, which was located at Kashintsevo, Biokombinat settlement, Shchelkovo raion, Moscow oblast’. The Soviet Union negotiated a contract for the purchase of technology for the production of FMD vaccine and the construction of the manufacturing facility from the French company Iffa-Meriuex (later to become Rhone Merieux). The Biofactory for the Production of FMD Vaccine was constructed in 1976. It employed the Frenkel process which uses epithelial tissue harvested from cattle tongues to produce tri-, bi- and mono-valent vaccines against the A, O and C strains of the FMD virus.42 Under the terms of the contract Rhone Merieux purchased quantities of FMD vaccine from Shchelkovo for subsequent sale in unknown markets. At the time this was the largest FMD facility in Europe with a capacity of 50 million doses of trivalent FMD vaccine per annum. Soviet scientists then succeeded in expanding production to 75 million doses per annum.43 A further decree was issued by the USSR Council of Ministers in 1974 which allocated a total of 22 million roubles to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture Main Administration of the Biological Industry’s (Glavbioprom) Tabakhmela Biocombine for the construction of a new facility for the production of 150,000 litres of liquid, and 10 million doses of dry, foot-­and-­ mouth disease vaccine per annum. The plant which was located around 13  km outside Tbilisi was renamed the Georgian Biological Combine (Gruzinskii biologicheskoi kombinat) in 1976.44 In order to prevent contamination, the Tabakhmela FMD production building and its auxiliary buildings were located within a separate gated area of the biologics plant. Dedicated test laboratories were also located within this area. The

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four-storey FMD production building, measuring 90 metres by 42 metres, was completed in 1980. The top floor was used entirely for ventilation and half the bottom floor for refrigerated storage, and half for ventilation. The remaining floors were split between production and utilities (hot water, steam, ventilation, electricity etc.). The building incorporated 70 highpressure Russian-built steam reactors dating from 1983. Of the remaining equipment, 60–70 per cent was imported from Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, with the rest manufactured within the Soviet Union.45 In Autumn 1976 construction also began of a new FMD vaccine production building at the Pokrov biologics factory. The vaccine was to be based on strains A22 and O194 of the FMD virus. By 1979 construction of the new facility was virtually complete. Initially production of lapinised FMD vaccine based on strain A22 was established and subsequently expanded five-fold in the mid-1980s. New technology for the production of FMD vaccine based on strain A22 in suspension cell culture was also successfully introduced into the facility and industrial output began in 1983. The total capacity for production of FMD vaccine at this site is not known but is likely to have been very large indeed.46 The Pokrov plant operated as a reserve mobilisation facility for anti-livestock BW agents, possibly including the FMD virus (see p. 117). As detailed above (see pp. 90–91) a fourth major industrial-scale FMD production plant was constructed in 1981 at Yur’evets, on territory belonging to VNIYaI. The Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat plant utilised fermenters, each with a capacity of 2000 litres, to produce FMD virus in BHK-21 suspension cell culture. The virus was utilised for the manufacture of mono-, bi-, tri- and quadrivalent FMD vaccines.47 The plant’s total production volumes are not known but even when operating at a third of its capacity in 1999 these were more than adequate to meet the needs of the CIS countries for FMD vaccine.48

VNIIVViM’s Focus on Anthrax The Ekologiya network incorporated at least one facility, the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology (VNIIVViM) in Vol’ginskii, which had a major focus on anthrax (B. anthracis). The early research undertaken during the 1880s–1940s in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union on anthrax and the development of vaccines against the pathogen is described in detail in the author’s previous work, Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare.49 Flowing

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from these foundations, in 1940 a team of military researchers led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Ginsburg and A.L. Tamarin at the Sanitary-Technical Institute (Sanitarno-Tekhnicheskii Institut or STI) successfully derived two avirulent non-capsulating B. anthracis strains, STI-1 and GIEV-III, from virulent parents by culture in coagulated horse serum.50 STI-1 was derived from the virulent strain Krasnaya Niva (Red Cornfield).51 A new live vaccine containing 25 x 107 spores of STI-1 was then developed and subsequently tested on more than two million agricultural animals.52 After the Second World War, the military anthrax vaccine played a crucial role in reducing the incidence of anthrax in livestock in Russia and the republics. The technology for the industrial production of the veterinary STI vaccine was transferred to a civilian industrial manufacturing facility which enabled the number of animals being vaccinated to be increased from 38.4 million in 1947 to 140 million in 1960, with a concomitant fall in the number of cases of anthrax from 30,500 to 3500 over the same period.53 A CIA report noted that among the manufacturers of the military vaccine in the mid-1940s was the Kashintsevo Biofactory, north-east of Moscow. At this time more than 40,000 litres of the preparation were produced in a two-year period by this facility and others.54 The use of the military anthrax vaccine had not, however, been without problems. In 1982 inoculation with contaminated STI vaccine manufactured by the Orel Biofactory resulted in illnesses and deaths of an unknown number of cattle and sheep.55 Besides specific incidents such as this, it was also found that not all animals injected with the vaccine developed immunity and for those which did, it was sometimes of short duration. As a result, it was recommended that in certain regions animals should have two shots of the vaccine (in spring and autumn) which was both wasteful and expensive.56 Moreover, since the 1950s the more widespread use of STI vaccine did not lead to an appreciable decline in the number of cases of anthrax in the human and animal population and there had been a recurrence of the disease in animals in the immediate period after inoculation. The deficiencies of the military-veterinary vaccine had led to Ekologiya’s VNIIVViM (Vol’ginskii) being charged with the development of a new, more effective anthrax preparation.57 The scientists leading this work were Vasilii Vital’evich Seliverstov, I.A. Bakulov and V.A. Gavrilov. State trials of the new vaccine were conducted at the All-Union State Scientific-Control Institute of Veterinary Preparations.58 The VNIIVViM scientists initially selected three naturally attenuated anthrax strains (No. 23, No. 55 and

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No. 62) for further experiments. Of these strains, No. 55 was found to be the most promising. It was shown to be avirulent, non-reversible, non-­ reactogenic and uncapsulated. The immunising dose (ImD50) required for strain No. 55 (120,000 spores) was found to be less than half that required for strain STI-1 (260,000 spores). Experiments showed that the period of immunity after vaccination was 1.5 years in sheep and cattle and 1 year in pigs. The vaccine could be stored with no deterioration for a period of two years.59 Following these positive findings major trials were begun of the new strain No. 55-VNIIVViM vaccine. Good results were obtained with the preparation in North Ossetia, Georgia and on the Taimyr Peninsula. Extremely few cases of anthrax were recorded post-vaccination in these regions although in contiguous territories which had not received the new vaccine, cases continued to be registered.60 The success of these trials led to the setting-up of industrial production of a live lyophilised spore anthrax vaccine based on strain No. 55-VNIIVViM at the Orel Biofactory and at VNIIVViM itself. In 1987, 20 million doses of the new vaccine were manufactured and used in 27 administrative regions of the RSFSR.61 In August 1994, the Orel facility was reported to be producing somewhere in the region of 360 million doses of this preparation in dry form and 62 tonnes (equivalent to 62 million doses) in liquid form, per annum. By the early 1990s more than 400 million head of livestock had been inoculated without complications or complaints from users. The vaccine received formal state approval in 1987 (USSR Gosagroprom Order No. 55).62 The preparation was exported to a number of countries around the world including India, Ethiopia and China.

R&D Programmes in Vol’ginskii and Gvardeiskii Focused on African Swine Fever (ASF) and African Horse Sickness (AHS) In 1999, Professor Seidigapbar Mamadaliev, the then Director of NISKhI noted that there had been close cooperation of the Gvardeiskii-based institute with VNIIVViM “which specialised in African swine and horse fevers”.63 In fact there is evidence that the African swine fever (ASF) virus was a major focus of research for the whole of Ekologiya’s veterinary network. It appears that VNIIVViM was the lead facility with much of the experimental work being undertaken at the Scientific-Research Agricultural

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Institute (NISKhI) in Gvardeiskii. Aleksandr Nikolaevich Burdov, one of NISKhI’s first directors, led R&D on the virus within his own laboratory. Two of his postgraduates, A.I.  Blagar’ and Tokturbai Belekov, were engaged in research on ASF. In 1972, the latter travelled to VNIIVViM in Vol’ginskii where he successfully defended his Candidate’s thesis. Completed within a period of three years, the work focused on developing serological methods for the diagnosis of ASF virus in pigs. Another postgraduate working under Burdov, A.I. Blagar’, was engaged in making a comparative assessment of serological methods of diagnosis of ASF. A key individual linking the two strands of GUNIiEPU’s ASF programme was Valentin Aleksandrovich Burlakov. He joined NISKhI in 1960 and worked at the facility for three years before being transferred to VNIIVViM in Russia and defending his Candidate’s and Doctoral theses on African swine fever. Another of those who pioneered research on ASF at NISKhI was Ivan Fedorovich Vishnyakov. He worked on the virus for two to three years at the institute.64 VNIIVViM is reported to have made a major contribution to the eradication of ASF in Cuba.65 Eventually the institute developed a commercial ASF vaccine for pigs based on its own LK-VNIIVViM strain.66 VNIIVViM, in conjunction with NISKhI, also had a major focus on the African horse sickness (AHS) virus. In his laboratory in Gvardeiskii, Burdov was working on the development of a live vaccine against AHS. He successfully completed this work and defended his Doctor of Sciences dissertation on this subject. There were also a number of postgraduates in Burdov’s lab who were working on the development of methods of diagnosis of AHS and another postgraduate was engaged in the development of a vaccine against the virus.67

Sheeppox, Goatpox and Fowlpox Viruses During the Soviet period, NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) is reported to have been engaged in research focused on the sheeppox virus (SPPV), goatpox virus (GTPV) and fowlpox virus (FPV).68 The lead scientist working on goatpox at the facility was V.I.  Ivanyushchenkov (see p.  130).69 There was already expertise in this area in Kazakhstan. As early as 1959, the Almaty Biocombine, also part of the Ekologiya network, was manufacturing both a SPPV and a GTPV vaccine. NISKhI also incorporated production capability in this area, with one small laboratory alone capable of producing 14 litres of sheeppox virus suspension over a 7–12 day cycle.70 The strains

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were subsequently used in vaccines produced by the Bishkek biologics plant.71 GUNIiEPU’s work on pox viruses is of potential proliferation concern. Although smallpox has been eliminated worldwide, advances in molecular genetics technologies and in the disease-causing mechanisms of poxviruses mean that it is now possible to use genetic engineering to make relatively benign poxviruses more virulent.72

R&D Programmes Conducted by Soviet Anti-crop BW Facilities: Rice Blast (Magnaporthe grisea) and Rice Bacteriosis (Xanthomonas oryzae) Magnaporthe grisea, the causal agent of rice blast, one of the most devastating plant diseases, causing huge losses worldwide, was one of the major foci of the Soviet anti-crop facilities. Research to develop biological weapons based on this organism was allegedly conducted within a secret programme entitled “Rybolov” (literally “Fisherman”, although there could be a reference here also to Kamen’ Rybolov, the location of the Far-Eastern Branch of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology— VNIIF). The programme of research is reported to have utilised some 20 or so criteria to assess the suitability of plant pathogens as biological weapons against rice. One of the criteria was the ability of the pathogen to spread disease extremely rapidly in this crop.73 The lead facility in the rice blast programme was VNIIF. It was engaged for a prolonged period in research on the biochemistry, genetics and virulence of this organism and on the creation of rice plants resistant to this pathogen. Clearly, there is a fine line between developing resistance to virulent strains and possibly attempting to enhance the virulence of the agent. Another of the main centres for research on rice blast was the Georgian Branch of VNIIF based at Kobuleti. Its scientists were initially solely focused on this disease and established fungal spore-catching sites using plants of different genotypes in the rice-growing areas of Azerbaijan. Infected experimental 5m2 rice plots were then set up at Kobuleti and, at great expense, were provided with their own irrigation systems. The plots were biologically isolated by being surrounded by high non-host species such as maize. These were assumed to have prevented cross-­contamination of other experimental plots and were considered to have had the added benefit of forestalling satellite observation of the test areas.74 The principal aim of this research was to isolate rare and extremely virulent strains of

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M. grisea able to infect a broad range of rice varieties.75 VNIIF’s Far-­ Eastern Branch in Kamen Rybolov also had a major focus on rice blast.76 The normal disseminating form of M. grisea for military purposes is by means of stable spores which are resistant to drying and adverse weather conditions. US military researchers selected strains of these agents both for their pathogenicity and for their ability to sporulate on rice polish agar and oats-sorghum substrate. As these agents are not obligate parasites, production in the US took place in cultures under controlled factory conditions. The spores could be stored under completely dry conditions at a temperature of 8°C and maintained their viability for over two years.77 According to one senior researcher engaged in the Soviet anti-rice programme, Georgette Naskidashvili, the Soviet work in this area “was very much advanced over research being conducted in the USA”.78 Given the substantive effort which went into the isolation of highly pathogenic rice blast strains at Kobuleti and elsewhere it appears to be a possibility that the Soviet Union went on to establish production lines for this agent. Production, and conceivably storage, may have been confined to research and production units within the Ekologiya network or may have taken place within civil or military facilities which were not formally part of the anti-crop network. In 1982, the Georgian Branch of VNIIF expanded its anti-rice programme and began work on Xanthomonas oryzae (the causal agent of rice bacteriosis). Samples of infected plants were collected by Soviet scientists in the North Caucasian republics of Chechenya-Ingushetya and Dagestan. X. oryzae strains isolated in Dagestan were found to be more pathogenic, to require lower temperatures for infection and to cause greater loss of harvest than strains isolated in South-East Asia. A total of 300 strains of X. oryzae were isolated in the North Caucasus but only one of these was extremely virulent. This work is highly significant since rice-breeding in the Philippines is directed primarily against local South-East Asian strains of X. oryzae which had not previously been recorded in Europe. The collection of strains held at Kobuleti was subsequently transferred to Moscow.79

Late Blight of Potatoes (Phytophthora infestans) During the Soviet period, VNIIF and its affiliates were engaged in a major long-term programme to isolate highly virulent strains of Phytophthora infestans (the causal agent of late blight of potato). As early as 1959, a

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dedicated unit, the Laboratory of Fungal Diseases of Potato and Vegetable Crops, was established at VNIIF by Professor Dmitrii Lukich Tverskoi to coordinate subordinate facilities working on P. infestans across the Soviet Union.80 During the period 1966–1989 for example, work was conducted at its subordinate Experimental Station at the Kamara Sovkhoz (Myizakyula, Estonia), with the aim of isolating virulent strains.81 The published literature indicates that the screening programme was successful and at the end of the growing season in 1985 for example, two highly virulent samples of P. infestans were isolated in Estonia.82 As part of its P. infestans programme VNIIF also established a subordinate Experimental Station at Novoaleksandrovka (Aniva raion), on the Island of Sakhalin. This was an area closed to foreigners during the Soviet period. From 1975 to 1990 potato cultivars were tested here against extremely virulent and aggressive isolates of P. infestans which are endemic to the island. It is interesting to note that the island’s P. infestans population has, since the onset of the VNIIF tests, developed fungicide resistance.83 This raises the disturbing possibility that the resistance emerged because of the accidental release of P. infestans strains during the course of experiments aimed at the development of offensive anti-crop BW agents.84 The Sakhalin Island test site has now been transferred to the local control of the Russian Academy of Sciences Far-Eastern Branch’s Sakhalin Research Institute of Agriculture.85 Another key facility engaged in work on Phytophthora infestans was the Georgian Branch of VNIIF located in Kobuleti (see Fig. 6.2). A research programme was initiated in Kobuleti in 1966 and virulent strains were tested against potatoes grown in small experimental plots established in the midst of maize and other tall crops in an attempt to achieve biological isolation. One aspect of this work which was extremely significant was the creation of new, highly virulent strains of Phytophthora via sexual reproduction. Special oogonia-forming virulent strains were supplied by Bol’shie Vyazemy and these were crossed with virulent Georgian strains. The new strains of P. infestans were transferred to Bol’shie Vyazemy in 1986. Some three to five years later all records and archives relating to this project were despatched to the same location.86 The Far-Eastern Branch of VNIIF located in Kamen’ Rybolov (on Lake Khanka in Primorskii krai) may also have been involved in the P. infestans programme. The area around Kamen’ Rybolov is reported to have endemic populations of virulent strains of P. infestans. A senior figure at

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Fig. 6.2  View of containment system employed within Georgian Branch of VNIIF’s greenhouse, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

the Far East facility confirmed that one of the principal research interests in Kamen’ Rybolov was centred on diseases of potato. A number of specialist groups were also established at VNIIF under the control of the Laboratory of Fungal Diseases of Potatoes including a Group for Potato Diseases and a Group for Technology of Potato Protection. The latter was organised by Professor Yuliya Vasil’evna Vorob’eva after the A2 mating type of P. infestans was discovered in South America. Vorob’eva travelled to Mexico and other South American countries to collect isolates of the new mating type. In 1985 the A2 mating type was isolated for the first time within the territory of the Soviet Union. However, the first scientific paper on the new mating type did not appear until 1991, six years after the original discovery.87 Given the scale of the Soviet military research programme focused on P. infestans it appears possible that a weaponised form of this agent was developed and produced by VNIIF and/or its satellite facilities. Soviet researchers would probably have been aware of the pellets of porous

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material inoculated with sporangia of P. infestans which were developed by US military researchers.88 Similar systems may have been elaborated by Soviet programmes or there may have been research undertaken on the aerosolisation of this agent.

Diseases of Cereal Crops From the moment of creation of the Ekologiya network, research was also directed against rust diseases of wheat and other cereal crops. Rusts are among the most damaging diseases of wheat and other small grain crops. A senior anti-crop scientist reports that VNIIF (Bol’shie Vyazemy), SKNIIF (Krasnodar), SANIIF (Tashkent) and NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) all incorporated laboratories focused on rust species. Among the phytopathogenic fungi which were investigated at NISKhI for example were: Puccinia graminis (the causal agent of stem rust), Puccinia striiformis (the causal agent of yellow rust), Puccinia recondita (the causal agent of brown rust), Zymoseptoria tritici (the causal agent of Septoria leaf blotch) and Parastagonospora nodorum (the causal agent of Septoria nodorum blotch).89 All the work undertaken by the Ekologiya labs encompassed research on races, physiology, epidemiology, cultivation and the screening of chemicals as potential fungicides. The Ekologiya labs isolated, identified and screened the rust races in their localities. Collaborative programmes were conducted to screen wheat varieties against the new races which were discovered. Resistance and susceptibility were compared in different geographical areas. Wheat which was resistant to a race in one geographic area was found to be susceptible in another.90 Scientists at SANIIF report that a major focus of their research was on P. striiformis (the causal agent of yellow rust) which was “being developed as a biological weapon to target the large producer nations”.91Aerobiological experiments were conducted to investigate the possibility of transferring urediniospores formed by this pathogen, from one territory to another. New methods and technologies for bringing about the multiplication of such spores were investigated. SANIIF personnel also investigated methods for preserving P. striiformis urediniospores over a long period of time in ampoules of liquid nitrogen.92 One of the key units working on diseases of cereal crops was NISKhI’s Laboratory of Biochemistry and Immunity. It was headed up by Gennadii Ivanovich Kobyl’skii. Initially the work focused on the biochemical nature of wheat resistance to stem rust (P. graminis). Later, during the period

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1984–1985, work was begun on P. nodorum (Septoria nodorum blotch), which was the most common wheat disease in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Studies were carried out on enzymes, phytotoxins, endogenous phytohormones and so on and the role of bioactive substances in pathogenicity. A major collection of P. nodorum was subsequently created at Gvardeiskii. Another facility which was involved in the research focused on rusts was the Georgian Branch of VNIIF in Kobuleti. In 1973, for example, it began work on stem rust (P. graminis).93 Subsequently, a programme aimed at the isolation of new virulent strains of P. nodorum (Septoria nodorum blotch) and Z. tritici (Septoria leaf blotch) was initiated in 1984. Expeditions were despatched in the spring moving along valleys into the Georgian mountains to collect infected wheat samples. Pure cultures were isolated and the requirements for their growth studied (e.g. temperature). The pathogenicity of these strains was studied and in collaboration with colleagues from Bol’shie Vyazemy the most aggressive and virulent strains were selected. The isolated pathogens could cause losses of harvest of 70 per cent. Part of the stock of these strains was deposited in the central Russian collections and part remained in Kobuleti.94

The Use of Insects to Transmit Plant Pathogens The USSR developed considerable technology and expertise for the mass rearing of insects, reportedly for controlling agricultural pests. One of the biggest success stories concerned the creation of automated lines for the mass output of small wasp-like chalcid-flies, Trichogramma, which act by depositing their eggs in the eggs of insect pests which are then destroyed by the emerging larvae. By 1983, Trichogramma were used to treat an area of some 14.2 million hectares, making this the most widespread form of biological control in the USSR.95 Initially, the Trichogramma were being bred on a small scale in laboratories across the Soviet Union. Later, automated production lines for the mass output of the insects were developed by the All-Union Institute of Plant Protection (VNIIZR) in Pushkin, near Leningrad. This was followed by the construction of an experimental factory at VNIIZR which had a capacity of 2–3 million Trichogramma per day. Several years later, factories with a capacity of 10–12 and 16–20 million Trichogramma per day, respectively, were commissioned at Durleshty in Moldova and Nal’chik in Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia.96 Similar factories were planned for construction in Kiev and Voronezh. A specially adapted OVKh-28 sprayer, developed by the Central Asian Scientific-Research

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Institute of Soil Science and Plant Breeding (CASAPBSRI), was utilised for the field dispersal of Trichogramma.97 Other insects produced and utilised on a large scale by the USSR included Cryptolaemus beetles, Chrysanthemum leaf miner flies (Chromatomyia (Phytomyza) syngenesiae) and the predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis. 98 Certainly then, the Soviet Union appears to have had considerable capability with regard to the mass production of insects which could conceivably have been utilised for the transmission of plant pathogens.

Offence or Defence? The Conflicting Narratives with Regard to the Ekologiya Programme There is an array of substantial evidence which is strongly indicative of the offensive nature of the Ekologiya programme. Of first and most importance is the existence of covert reserve mobilisation BW production facilities, the most well documented of which, the Pokrov biologics plant, is discussed extensively in Chap. 5. This facility closely resembled the mobilisation BW plants in existence in the Biopreparat network, which are widely recognised as offensive in nature. Moreover, visiting Western inspectors were left in little doubt as to the intended purpose of the Pokrov facility. Important evidence of the offensive intent of the agricultural BW programme is also provided by Alibek, who reports he sat alongside Major General Khudyakov, head of GUNIiEPU, on the Interbranch Scientific and Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS), which coordinated all aspects of the Soviet offensive BW programme.99 Alibek’s testimony is supported by Ekologiya scientists themselves, some of whom have been prepared to document the offensive nature of their endeavours. The vast scale and highly secretive nature of the Ekologiya effort is also suggestive of an offensive focus. Finally, there are the welldocumented experiments conducted in the mid-1930s by the Soviet military on the use of BW agents against agricultural targets. These might very well be indicative of the USSR’s long-term interest in acquiring such a military capability. Despite all this evidence, some former lead scientists within the Ekologiya network are still prepared to argue the case that they were wholly engaged in work aimed at the defence of the USSR from BW attack on its agriculture. As late as 2010 for example, one of the most senior anti-crop scientists who had been employed within the Ekologiya system was still

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prepared to assert that VNIIF had been created to guarantee the food security of the USSR and effectively acted as an “All-Union Centre” for the defence of plants against biological weapons. The creation by the Soviet Union of a network of specialised scientific facilities, he argued, had been a response to chemical and biological weapons programmes pursued during the 1950s and 1960s by the USA and certain other countries, including the UK and Canada.100 During the Soviet period, senior management at GUNIiEPU institutes had put out much the same message. Misleading propaganda was regularly issued, detailing how the US could destroy the Soviet agricultural crop over an extremely short space of time via the utilisation of biological weapons, including the deployment of agents based on wheat rusts. Staff were advised that surveillance methods must be employed to detect any attack and the possibility of accumulating fungicide stockpiles was discussed.101 In the absence of any definitive histories or memoirs relating to Ekologiya, such arguments as to the nature and intent of the Soviet agricultural BW network are likely to continue. Such was the level of secrecy to which they were subjected, that no one employed within the Ekologiya programme has thus far made any attempt to publish any account of their activities. There have been one or two unpublished memoirs written, but unlike the situation with Biopreparat, nobody operating at the highest levels of management in the system has come forward to provide an over-­ arching history. The true nature and extent of these activities may only be finally resolved when the state archives relating to this episode become available to both Russian and Western scholars.102

Notes 1. US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Chemical and Biological Warfare Capabilities–USSR, March 1977, DST-16005-034-76-Sup. 1, pp. 236-245, in Ban, J., Agricultural Biological Warfare, An Overview, The Arena [CBACI], No. 9, June 2000. 2. Ibid, pp. 236-245. 3. Leitenberg, M., State-Level vs. Substate Programs Utilizing AntiPlant and Anti-Animal BW Agents, p. 50. 4. Ibid. 5. Roeder, P., Rich, K., The Global Effort to Eradicate Rinderpest, IFPRI Discussion Paper 00923, November 2009, p.  1, https://core.ac.uk/ download/pdf/132630941.pdf, Accessed on the 19 June 2019.

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6. Morens, D.M., Holmes, E.C., Davis, A.S., Taubenberger, J.K., Global Rinderpest Eradication: Lessons Learned and Why Humans Should Celebrate Too, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 204(4), 15 August 2011, pp. 502-505, 10.1093/infdis/jir327, Accessed on the 2 April 2020. 7. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 38. 8. Vishnevskiy, P.P., New Data in the Study of Cattle Diseases in the USSR, Veterinariya, No. 11, 1947, pp. 24-28, General CIA Records, 16 August 1951, Released on the 25 August 2011, https://www.cia.gov/library/ readingroom/document/cia-rdp80-00809a000600400773-9, Accessed on the 17 June 2019. 9. Ibid. 10. McVety, A.K., The Rinderpest Campaigns: A Virus, Its Vaccines, and Global Development in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, 2018, p. 168. 11. Ibid. 12. Geissler, E., Biological warfare activities in Germany, 1923–45, Biological & Toxin Weapons, p. 98. 13. McVety, A.K., The Rinderpest Campaigns, p. 169. 14. Geissler, E., Biological warfare activities in Germany, 1923–45, p. 103. 15. McVety, A.K., The Rinderpest Campaigns, p. 170. 16. For additional information on these branches, see Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950. 17. Harris, S.H., Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American Cover-up, Revised Edition, Routledge, New  York, 2002, pp. 115–116. 18. Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons, p. 52. 19. Harris, S.H., Factories of Death, p. 128. 20. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 301. 21. Interview with senior NISKhI scientist, London, 9 April 2004. 22. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 23. Vishnyakov Ivan Fedorovich, Entsiklopedii, slovari, spravochniki, http:// www.cnshb.ru/AKDiL/akad/base /RV/000323.shtm, Accessed on the 1 December 2020. 24. Roeder, P., Rich, K., The Global Effort to Eradicate Rinderpest, p.13. 25. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, pp. 185–187. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Veterinary Science in the Soviet Union.

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29. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, pp. 185–187. 30. Ibid, p. 200. 31. Safonov, G.A. (Ed.), Zashchishaya zhivotnykh i cheloveka, p. 20. 32. Interview with Seidigapbar M.  Mamadaliev, NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, 8 April 2003. 33. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 301. 34. Warwick, J., Russia’s poorly guarded past, p. A01. 35. Interview with management of the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan, Armenia, 21 September 2002. 36. Ban, J., Agricultural Biological Warfare, An Overview, p. 3. 37. Interview with management of the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan, Armenia, 24 September 2002. 38. Ibid. 39. Gusev, A.A., Gody stanovleniya i perspektivy nauchno-proizvodstvennoi deyatel’nosti, Veterinariya, No. 8, 1996, p.31. 40. Interview with management of the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan, Armenia, 21 September 2002. 41. Statistics regarding the size of Soviet livestock herds in the period 1975–1987 are provided in Rimmington, A., Biotechnology in the USSR, PhD thesis completed at the Centre for Russian & East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1988, p. 189. 42. A meat processing plant is located immediately adjacent to the Shchelkovo Biocombine and provides a convenient source of raw material for the production of FMD vaccine. See Federal’noe Gosudarstvennoe Unitarnoe Predpriyatie “Shchelkovskii biokombinat”, Russian Federation Ministry of Agriculture, 2000, p. 4. 43. Skichko, N.D., Eremets, V.I., Samuilenko, A.Ya., Zhil’ber, A., Itogi 25-letnego proizvodstva protivoyashchurnykh vaktsin na shchelkovskom biokombinate, Problemy infektsionnoi patologii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh zhivotnykh: Tezisy dokladov konferentsii, posvyashchennoi 100-letiyu otkrytiya virusa yashchura, 27–31 October 1997, Vladimir, 1997, p. 69. 44. “GABI” Joint Stock Company, Georgian Agrarian Biological Industry, pamphlet, date and place of publication unknown. 45. JSC “Sakagrobiomretsvi”—Vaccine manufacturer for farm animals, http://web.sanet.ge/mospm/tender/sakagrobiomretsvi/iv_bio.html. 46. Safonov, G.A. (Ed.), Zashchishchaya zhivotnykh i cheloveka, p.  25, pp. 109-112. 47. The plant incorporated a number of Departments including Department of Media Production, Department of Cell Culture, Department of Virus

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Production in Suspension and Department of Vaccine Formulation, Filling and Packing. Of the 260 employees in the main production area, 22 were degree holders. Poster display at “Russian Biotechnology—An Overview of its Standards & Efficiency & Opportunities of Cooperation with Western Companies”, Workshop organised by Pharmaceutical Worldwide Database, DECHEMA Building, Frankfurt, Germany, 1–2 March 1993. 48. EUFMD 33rd Session—Appendix 13: FMD Control in CIS Countries, http://www.fao.org/ag/AGA/AGAH/ EUFMD/ reports/sess33/ app13.htm, Accessed on the 19 November 2002. 49. Rimmington, A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon, pp. 133–136 and 189–193. 50. Lebedinskii, V.A., Abdullin, T.G., Evstigneev, V.I., Garin, N.S., Lukin, E.P., “Vklad nauchno-issledovatel’skogo instituta mikrobiologii ministerstva oborony SSSR v razrabotku problem infektsionnoi immunologii”, Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal, No. 8, August 1989, pp.  67–71; Viestur, Shmite, Zhilevich, Biotekhnologiya, p. 129. 51. Ipatenko, N.G., Tatarintsev, N.T., Manichev, A.A., Sedov, V.A., Gushchin, V.N., “Istoriya sozdaniya otechestvennykh i zarubezhnykh protivosibireyazvennykh vaktsin”, Veterinariya, No. 3, March 1989, p. 71. 52. Shlyakov, E.N., Rubinstein, E., “Human live anthrax vaccine in the former USSR”, Vaccine, Vol. 12, No. 8, 1994, p. 727. 53. Official instructions for the application of liquid STI vaccine in animals were approved by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Administration for Veterinary Medicine on the 27 August 1956 (these instructions were revised on 20 March 1970). In the case of the dry vaccine these instructions were approved on 8 March 1964 (revised 27 March 1970). See Tret’yakova, A.D., Veterinarnoe zakonodatel’stvo, Vol. 1, Kolos, Moscow, 1972, pp. 525–527. 54. The Soviet BW Programme, p. 84. 55. Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., Kosyachenko, N.S., “Sovremennye vozzreniya na bezopasnost’ zhivykh sibireyazvennykh vaktsin”, Veterinariya, No. 1, 1993, p. 23. 56. Ipatenko, N.G., Tatarintsev, N.T., Nanichev, A.A., Sedov, V.A., Gushchin, V.N., Revazov, A.L., Gutiev, A.V., Gutiev, A.N., Bakhtarov, S.I., Krutskikh, V.A., Kiselev, Yu.T., Muryi, A.A., Grigorov, V.I., “Rezul’taty primeneniya vaktsiny protiv sibirskoi yazvy iz shtamma 55”, Veterinariya, No. 8, August 1989, p. 7. 57. The live lyophilised spore anthrax vaccine is based on strain No. 55-VNIIVViM. It received formal state approval in 1987 and had by 1991 already been used on more than 600 million head of livestock. See Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., “Immunoprofilaktika sibirskoi yazy zhivotnykh”, Vestnik sel’sko-khozyaistvennykh nauki, Vol. 419, No. 8, 1991,

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p.  129; Ipatenko, Tatarintsev, Nanichev, Sedov, Gushchin, Revazov, Gutiev, Gutiev, Bakhtarov, Krutskikh, Kiselev, Muryi, Grigorov, “Rezul’taty primeneniya vaktsiny protiv sibirskoi yazvy iz shtamma 55”, p. 7; Bakulov, L.A., Gavrilov, V.A., “Evaluation of the efficacy of 10-year use of strain 55-VNIIVViM vaccine against anthrax in animals”, Veterinariya, No. 8, August 1994, pp. 11–15, translated in JPRS Report, Science & Technology, Central Eurasia, JPRS-UST-94-031, 23 November 1994, p. 50. 58. Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., “Immunoprofilaktika sibirskoi yazy zhivotnykh”, p. 129. 59. Ibid, p. 130. 60. Ibid. 61. Bakulov, L.A., Gavrilov, V.A., “Evaluation of the efficacy of 10-year use of strain 55-VNIIVViM vaccine against anthrax in animals”, p. 9. 62. Bakulov, I.A., Gavrilov, V.A., “Immunoprofilaktika sibirskoi yazy zhivotnykh”, p. 130. 63. Miller, J., Long Island lab may do studies of bioterrorism, The New York Times, 22 September 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/22/ nyregion/long-­i sland-­l ab-­m ay-­d o-­s tudies-­o f-­b ioterrorism.html, Accessed on the 19 February 2020. 64. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 65. O nas, Official VNIIVViM website (date of publication unknown), https://ficvim.ru/about, Accessed on the 7 December 2020. 66. Westerdahl, K., Building and Measuring Confidence, Appendix 1, p. 4. 67. Slavnye stranitsy iz zhizni. 68. Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Ye., Yeleukenov, D., Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 16. 69. Interview with Academician Tsyren Khanduev, Uzbek Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, 16 April 1999. 70. Information provided during tour of anti-livestock laboratories to author, Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii settlement, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999. 71. Information provided by Tynchtykbek Omurbekovich Dzhaparaliev, Director of Joint Stock Company “Altyn Tamyr”, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 1145, 9 September 1998. 72. Steinberg, A.D., Recent Worldwide Research on Animal Pox Viruses, prepared for the Open Source Center by the MITRE Corporation, January 2008, p.  2, https://fas.org/irp/dni/osc/pox.pdf, Accessed on the 19 February 2020. 73. Interview with former Deputy Director of GUNIiEPU plant pathology institute, 10–11 June 2003.

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74. Discussions with Georgette Naskidashvili (director, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti), Dining Room, Alik Hotel, Batumi, Achara Republic, Georgia, 3 May 2001. 75. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (director), Administration Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 76. Meeting with senior scientist from SANIIF, London, 31 September 2004. 77. Whitby, S., Biological Warfare Against Crops, p. 144. 78. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (director), Main Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 79. Information provided during presentation at main building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 5 May 2001. 80. Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii (VNIIF). 81. Koppel, M., Runno, E., Late blight situation in Estonia, paper presented at Potato Late Blight—Past, Present and Future, NJF-Seminar No. 314, Bäckaskog, Sweden, 3–6 October 2000. 82. Koppel, M., Late blight infection of potato varieties in Estonia in 1920–1991, http://www.bspp.org.uk/ icpp98/6/68.html. 83. Interview with former Soviet anti-crop scientist, 29 January 2002. 84. At least one former anti-crop scientist categorically denied that the fungicide resistance present in the P. infestans population on Sakhalin Island was due to the accidental release of this agent during experiments in the Soviet period, Interview with former Soviet anti-crop scientist, 29 January 2002. 85. Interview with former Soviet anti-crop scientist, 29 January 2002. 86. Information presented by staff member at Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 5 May 2001. 87. Interview with former Soviet anti-crop scientist, 29 January 2002. 88. Whitby, S., Biological Warfare Against Crops, pp. 146–148. 89. Interview with former staff member (1960–1985) of Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan), Ala-Acha, Kyrgyz Republic, 12 September 1999. 90. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 91. Interview conducted with former weapons scientist at SANIIF, London, UK, in 2004. 92. Ibid. 93. Information provided during presentation by staff member at Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 5 May 2001. 94. Information presented by staff member at the Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 5 May 2001.

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95. Rimmington, A., Biotechnology in the USSR, p. 277. 96. Zashchita rastenii, No. 11, November 1973, pp. 2–4. 97. Turkmenskaya iskra, 12 November 1982, p. 3. 98. Sinitsyn, V.V., Problems of environmental protection in plant protection, pp. 65–69, in Khimiya v sel’skom khozyaistve, No. 4, 1975, translated in JPRS, 66469, 30 December 1975; and Zashchita rastenii, No. 5, May 1984, pp. 6–9. 99. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons, p. 18. 100. Vyazemka informatsionyi byulleten’. 101. Interview with former senior scientist from Central Asian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, 10–11 June 2003. 102. An archive of materials relating to scientific research conducted by Ekologiya facilities during the period 1958–1992 is maintained by the Russian Academy of Sciences in Building No. 1 at its Institute of Radiology and Agroecology in Obninsk. No Western scholars have had access to this material and no detailed description of these holdings has been published. See Nauchnyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi akademii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh nauk, Information System of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Date of publication unknown, http://isar a n . r u / ? = r u / f u n d & g u i d = C 1 6 E 2 2 C 1 -­C B 8 4 -­4 B E 5 -­A E B 0 -­ FBBB8DBF3A9A&ida=42, Accessed on the 14 December 2020.

CHAPTER 7

From Military to Agro-industrial Complex: The Legacy of the Agricultural BW Programme in the Post-Soviet States

The Collapse of the USSR and the Evacuation Scientists to the Russian Federation

of Weapons

In 1989 the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-­ Production Establishments (GUNIiEPU) was amalgamated with the Main Administration of the Biological Industry (Glavbioprom) to form the Main Scientific-Production Administration of the Biological Industry (Glavnoe nauchno-proizvodstvennoe upravlenie biologicheskoi promyshlennosti).1 However, there is no evidence that there was any attempt at this time to terminate the Soviet Union’s offensive agricultural BW programmes. It was only in December 1991, with the collapse of the USSR, that the programme finally disintegrated. The newly empowered Russian authorities made strenuous efforts to evacuate leading agricultural BW personnel left stranded in Central Asia and at other locations to the Russian Federation. Secret documentation and strains from facilities located in the newly independent republics were also repatriated.2 During the period 1991–1992, for example, many anti-crop scientists were transferred to the Central Russian Branch of VNIIF in Novaya zhizn’, Tambov (see p. 89). Of the 18 scientists who arrived in Tambov, 9 were originally based in 5 anti-crop laboratories in Gvardeiskii and 9 in Tashkent.3 Sources at NISKhI (Gvardeiskii) confirm that personnel from five laboratories which focused on anti-crop biological weapons were transferred to Tambov following the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_7

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collapse of the Soviet Union.4 One of the key individuals to be transferred to the Russian Federation was Dr Gennadii Ivanovich Kobyl’skii, deputy scientific director of the Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology who was evacuated from Tashkent in December 1991. Again, at the Georgian Branch of VNIIF, it is reported that of the 176 scientists employed at the facility during the Soviet period, 116, including most of the heads of the research laboratories who were Russian and most of the younger researchers, were evacuated to the Tambov facility.5 Over the next decade it appears that the evacuated scientists were kept in strict isolation at the remote Novaya zhizn’ site and no attempt was made to secure funding for new research programmes from the ISTC and related international organisations. The Russian government, instead, appears to have had ambitious plans for the Central Russian Branch of VNIIF to participate in the commercial agricultural sector and selected it for priority investment. On 27 May 1993, the Council of Ministers– Government of the Russian Federation issued decree No. 499 “concerning Measures for the Development of the Agrobiological Industry and the Strengthening of the Material-Technical Base of the Veterinary Service”. The decree called for the adoption of a proposal put forward by the Russian Ministry of Agriculture concerning the creation of a Science Production Centre on the basis of the Novaya zhizn’ facility and its Experimental-Production Farm. It was envisaged that the new centre would be given the task of evaluating the effectiveness of microbial pesticides, the production of which was being planned in enterprises belonging to the agro-industrial industry. As part of this new project, the decree detailed that a new laboratory building occupying an area of 8000  m2 would be constructed during the period 1993–1995.6 Under the terms of the decree, a number of organisations were given a two-month period in which to examine and resolve questions concerned with the organisation of the new centre. These were the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, the Russian Ministry of Science and Technology Policy and the Russian Science Production Concern Rosagrobioprom.7 However, over the next decade or so there was no new construction at the site and no significant increase in government financing.

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The Transfer to Civil Control of Russia’s Anti-crop and Anti-livestock Facilities In the wake of the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December 1991, substantive efforts were made to reorganise the management of Russia’s anti-crop and anti-livestock facilities and to redirect their efforts to civil objectives. The Russian Federation inherited the bulk of this BW network which was rapidly transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ (Rossel’khozakademiya) Department of Plant Protection (Otdelenie zashchity rastenii).8 Initially, the reorganised Rossel’khozakademiya continued to be controlled by the agricultural ministry and its president served there as a deputy minister. However, subsequently the academy was granted independent status and began to exercise a considerable degree of autonomy from government structures. VNIIF retained control of its branch facilities for some considerable time after the collapse of the Soviet Union. For example, it was not until June 1997 that its Central Russian Branch secured its independence and was reorganised as the Central Russian Scientific-Research Phytopathology Station (SNIFS). In similar fashion VNIIF’s Far-Eastern Branch on Lake Khanka was reorganised as the Far-Eastern Scientific-­ Research Institute of Plant Protection (DVNIIZR).9 It too has been transferred to the control of Rossel’khozakademiya.10 Another facility which underwent major change since the break-up of the Soviet Union was SKNIIF. On 8 December 1992, the Russian government issued decree No. BS-P1-7928, and on 30 December 1992, the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences issued corresponding Order No. 137 concerning the reorganisation of SKNIIF as the All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Biological Plant Protection (VNIIBZR). The institute, now subordinate to the Agricultural Academy, continued to occupy the territory formerly belonging to SKNIIF and incorporated eleven research laboratories.11 In addition, the Russian Federation continued to operate across its territory a network of nearly 80 plant protection stations. These were a legacy of the Cold War period when VNIIF established at sites around the Soviet Union, 300 monitoring stations for the purposes of civil defence. As part of this role, they were given a wide range of responsibilities including the detection of fungal spores. In the post-USSR period, specialists employed at the stations continued to receive training at VNIIF and the institute

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also provided support for the stations which remained operational within the Russian Federation. A major reorganisation also took place with regard to Russia’s anti-­ livestock BW facilities. The two key research centres, VNIIVViM (Vol’ginskii) and VNIYaI (Vladimir), were placed under the management of separate organisations. VNIYaI was renamed as the All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Animal Health (VNIIZZh) and remained under the control of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture (see Fig. 7.1). Meanwhile, in December 1991, VNIIVViM was renamed as the All-­ Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Virology and Microbiology and transferred to the control of Rossel’khozakademii. VNIYaI appears to be the only Soviet-era GUNIiEPU veterinary R&D facility to be retained under direct control by the Russian agricultural ministry. This probably reflects its pivotal role in defence against FMD outbreaks which could potentially wreak havoc within the country’s livestock sector. Its significance as a globally important centre in the fight against this disease was

Fig. 7.1  View of entrance to All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Animal Health (VNIIZZh), Yur’evets, Russian Federation, 1994. Photographer: Alex Donaldson (used with author’s permission)

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underlined in May 1995, when it was granted the status by the Office International des Épizooties (OIE) of a Regional Reference Laboratory for FMD in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus.12 A session of the Research Group of the Standing Technical Committee of the European Commission for the Control of FMD was subsequently held in Yur’evets.13 In addition, in recent years VNIIZZh has been generating substantive hard currency revenues from the sale of its vaccines to the Russian poultry industry. It was also engaged in the export of batches of concentrated inactivated FMD antigen to Jordan’s JOVAC for local vaccine production.14 The transfer of VNIIVViM to the Russian agricultural academy does appear to mark a serious intent by the Russian authorities at that time to suspend military programmes and reorientate activities at the institute to civil objectives. The individual tasked with heading-up the facility during this transitional period was a leading virologist, Ivan Fedorovich Vishnyakov, who served as director from 1990 through to 1999. Whilst there was an initial reluctance at the institute to forge international partnerships, severe economic pressures soon led the senior management to engage in commercial collaborative ventures with Western partners. On 30 November 2001, American Biogenetic Sciences, Inc. (ABI), a development stage company based in Copiague, New York, entered into an effective agreement with VNIIVViM which granted it rights for at least a decade to act as the institute’s distributor outside of Russia for livestock vaccines and a range of other products.15 This agreement was in fact negotiated with high-level officials of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and included VNIIVViM’s anthrax vaccine which ABI had secured rights to distribute in North and South America, the European Union and the Pacific Rim.16 Meanwhile, there was also a major reorganisation with regard to the management of Russia’s agricultural vaccine production facilities. On 25 December 1991, a new organisation, the Science Production Concern Rosagrobioprom, was formed in Moscow under the leadership of Pavel Petrovich Rakhmanin. It was subordinate to the Russian Ministry of Food and Agriculture and incorporated 16 Russian production facilities manufacturing a range of around 200 products. It absorbed the bulk of the factories and institutes formerly subordinate to the Main Scientific-­ Production Administration of the Biological Industry, including the Pokrov biologics factory which is described above (see Chap. 5). The Science Production Concern was subsequently reorganised as the Russian

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Joint Stock Company Rosagrobioprom (RAO Rosagrobioprom) in 1993. It remained based at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s Moscow headquarters and was at this time subordinate to the Veterinary Department. Pavel Petrovich Rakhmanin was retained as President.17 Some idea of the capacity available to RAO Rosagrobioprom at this time is given by the fact that in 1995 its facilities were responsible for the production of 59 bacterial vaccines and 56 viral vaccines, including 75 million doses of foot-and-­ mouth disease vaccine, 118 million doses of anthrax vaccine, 110 million doses of classical swine fever vaccine and 10 million doses of rabies vaccine.18 Evidence is presented below (see pp. 165–166) to indicate that the Pokrov biologics plant and other production units subordinate to Rosagrobioprom have become heavily involved in civil commercial activities since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Iran and the Proliferation Threat Arising in the Wake of the Collapse of the Soviet Union In the wake of the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, facilities formerly incorporated within the Soviet anti-crop biological weapons programmes, operated against a background of economic collapse and suspension of orders from the military. Funding for research and operating budgets virtually disappeared. The situation at the All-Russian Institute of Phytopathology—VNIIF (based at Bol’shie Vyazemy in the Moscow oblast’)—was typical of the network as a whole. Its staff were only paid intermittently, and during the period 1991 through to 1998, more than 900 out of a total of 1200 personnel left the facility. During the period 1992–1995, VNIIF’s Central Russian Branch at Novaya zhizn’, near Tambov, also lost around half of its key personnel. It was against this background of dislocation and collapse that Iran emerged as a major player seeking to acquire former Soviet expertise in the pursuit of its own BW programme. Significantly, the Iranians are reported to “have shown particular interest in learning about microbes that can be used in war to destroy or protect crops”.19 Reports of an Iranian biological weapons programme surfaced during the first years of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq war. During the conflict, Iraq employed several chemical weapons which resulted in estimated Iranian casualties of 50–100,000 personnel. Reports of biological weapons activity intensified in the early 1990s, after the post-Gulf War discovery of

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Iraq’s massive programme. The US Department of State in 2001 reported that Iran’s biological warfare programme was launched during the course of the Iran-Iraq conflict and was believed to be pursuing offensive biological warfare capabilities. It further noted that “Tehran has expanded its efforts to seek considerable dual-use biotechnical materials and expertise from entities in Russia and elsewhere, ostensibly for civilian reasons. Outside assistance is important for Iran, and it is also difficult to prevent because of the dual-use nature of the materials and equipment being sought by Iran and the many legitimate end uses for these items.”20 There is no evidence that Russia deliberately supplied Iran with technology and/ or equipment for use in any BW programme. However, Iran does appear to have viewed Russia and the other successor states as attractive targets with regard to procuring technical information on production of biological agents and for related training of its personnel. There is substantive evidence available which indicates that Iran specifically targeted technologies developed within former Soviet anti-crop BW facilities. Initial contacts appear to have been made in Moscow between Iranian representatives and staff members based at VNIIF. One of the latter subsequently travelled to Iran and made visits to Tehran University, together with its subordinate Plant Research Institute and another unidentified facility in Mashad.21 Presumably as a result of these initial contacts, a visit was made by a five-man Iranian delegation to the Bol’shie Vyazemy facility in 1997. At the meeting in VNIIF, the Iranians are reported to have expressed great interest in scientific exchanges between the Russian Federation and Iran. However, according to Yurii Spiridonov, head of the Herbicide Department at the Russian institute, he immediately became suspicious of his Iranian guests. Several of the members of the delegation appeared to be clerics rather than scientists and “they just sat there most of the time, saying nothing, sitting on their hands”.22 The Iranians also “asked ‘troubling’ questions about substances related to biological warfare. These were not scientific questions.” Some of the team had shown particular interest in learning about microorganisms “that could be used in war to destroy or protect crops”.23 The Iranian delegation to VNIIF was led by Mehdi Rezayat whose business card described him as the director of the Department of Pharmacology at the Tehran Medical Sciences University and as a scientific advisor to the Office of Scientific and Industrial Studies of the then President, Mohammad Khatami. Rezayat spoke fluent English and claimed to have visited many former Soviet laboratories and entered into

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discussions with directors and leading scientists. He was greatly interested in exploring opportunities for scientific exchanges with VNIIF, but is reported to have been “studiously ambiguous about precisely what he wanted the Russian scientists to do when and if they accepted Iran’s invitation to work there”.24 According to Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, US intelligence officials identified Rezayat as a senior Iranian intelligence officer. He appears to have been attached to a branch of an Iranian office which covertly sought to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons’ expertise and technology.25 Spiridonov reported that he personally had declined several invitations to visit Tehran but that three of the institute’s scientists had gone there. According to Miller, Rezayat was offering to pay US $5000 a month to germ warfare scientists, more than most could make in a year in the chaotic Russian economy at this time.26 Despite the reported Russian scepticism concerning the motives of the Iranian visit to Bol’shie Vyazemy, the director of the Institute of Phytopathology, Anatolii Makarov, subsequently led a delegation of his scientists on a reciprocal mission to Tehran. According to Spiridonov, Iranian interest centred on procurement of information concerning methods of application of herbicides and above all in the destruction of crops with the help of herbicides. In 1998 some technology relating to herbicides appears to have been transferred to the Iranians but this did not encompass any plant pathogens.27 The Pokrov biologics plant, a Soviet-era BW mobilisation facility, may also have been targeted by Iran and other countries with regard to the acquisition of weapons-related technology. A little more than a decade after the collapse of the USSR, the factory was described as “a crumbling and poorly guarded facility that has become another front line in the battle to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction”.28 A US delegation visiting the facility in December 2000 reported that no guards were present within hundreds of yards and that only a shovel propped against the main entrance door kept it closed.29 Similarly, in 2003, a visiting group of US officials with the CTR programme described the plant as “a shambles”.30 It was reported to hold a collection of more than a dozen deadly viruses. However, the site was again observed to be dilapidated and reliant upon an ancient and inadequate alarm system. Scientists were underpaid and the plant was in arrears with regard to payments for energy supply. The military garrison guarding the site had been withdrawn and mainly replaced with elderly civilians. According to Vladimir Andreevich Gavrilov, the then director of the facility, there had been “break-ins, as

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well as attempts by mysterious ‘Arab businessmen’ to purchase various things”.31 None of these attempts had met with success but Gavrilov also noted that remedying security concerns at the plant would be complex and expensive. Iran also targeted agricultural research facilities in the newly independent republics. In the immediate post-Soviet period for example, employees at the Institute of Plant Immunity (IPI; the former Georgian Branch of VNIIF) in Kobuleti were also subject to the post-Soviet economic chaos, not receiving salaries for more than twelve months and their facility left completely isolated with no telephone or email communication facilities. At some point during the Iranian negotiations, a Russian-speaking scientist is reported to have contacted Georgette Naskidashvili, the director at Kobuleti, to enquire whether she would have any interest in receiving a delegation from Iran. Naskidashvili reports that she declined this offer (see pp. 174–176).32 In a similar fashion, in the period following the collapse of the USSR, contacts are reported to have been made between Iran and the Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology (Tashkent)—the former SANIIF. While reportedly reciprocal visits were made, these contacts do not appear to have resulted in any active scientific or commercial collaboration.33 Another GUNIiEPU facility targeted by Iran was the Tajikistan Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ Central Asian FMD Institute (SAYaI)— the former Central Asian Branch of VNIYaI, located approximately 12 km outside of Dushanbe. The branch was transferred to the control of the local academy under the terms of Order No. 44 issued by the Tajikistan Council of Ministers on the 21 February 1992. By 2003, of the 93 personnel at the facility, only some 5–6 were staff who had been employed during the Soviet period—the remainder had been evacuated to Russia. The institute was barely surviving at this time and had a paltry state-­ allocated budget of only US $15,000 per annum. SAYaI’s Director, Dr Muzafar A. Anoyadbekov, appointed in 2001, had an official salary of a mere US $10 per month. The institute’s income was, however, being supplemented by the sale of veterinary vaccines. Despite the financial crisis, Anoyadbekov had expanded the research focus at SAYaI to include not only FMD virus but also B. anthracis, sheeppox virus and goatpox virus. It was against this background that in March 2001, Anoyadbekov was invited to Iran to meet with the senior management at the Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute (RVSRI) in Hesarak, Karaj, to the

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north-west of Tehran. Anoyadbekov had an interest at that time in finding a collaborative partner to work on rinderpest.34 The Moldovan Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biological Protection in Chisinau, Moldova, was also a focus of interest for the Iranians. During the Soviet period it had been known as the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Biological Methods of Plant Protection (VNIIBMZR) and was at that time subordinate to VASKhNIL. The Iranians may possibly have been seeking to acquire technology developed at the facility for the mass-production of insects or the manufacture of microbial pesticides. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, the institute was reported to have had “neither heat nor electricity, never mind money for salaries or research”.35 By 1997, at least three scientists from the Institute of Biological Protection were reported to have been employed for at least six months on unknown projects in Tehran, Iran.36 In the years that followed, the Moldovan-­ Iranian collaboration was reported to have continued and to include the participation of Professor Nikolai Popov, a lead scientist at the Institute of Biological Protection, who confirmed that he had been a regular visitor to Iran. A Western scientist who talked to Popov in February 1999 reported that the Moldovan scientist had just returned from a two-week visit to Iran. It was not known at which institute he had been employed.37 With growing awareness of Iranian efforts to acquire former Soviet anti-crop and anti-livestock expertise, the United States appears to have moved rapidly to provide new lines of funding to the phytopathology and veterinary network. The first significant initiative from the West appears to have been sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) which in May 1999 funded a mission to the USA by four scientists from the All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology. The Russian researchers visited the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and a number of universities and commercial laboratories.38 VNIIF is reported to have signed commercial contracts with a number of American companies, presumably with US government support.39 Building on these initial interactions, one of the key collaborative ISTC partner projects agreed in January 2004, sponsored by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), was the provision of US$2.9 million for the upgrade at VNIIF of security and safety systems to protect biological material.40 The new US-Russian cooperation was underlined in 2005, with a visit to the institute by a delegation of senior US representatives, including Barack Obama and Senator Richard G. Lugar. On 21 September 2009, a delegation from

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DTRA, led by Major General Randy E. Manner, visited VNIIF to underline the successful completion of the project. The delegation visited buildings that had benefited from the upgrades and at the invitation of the institute were shown the improvements made to the building’s infrastructure and security.41 US representatives are reported to have insisted upon the cessation of contacts with Iran as a pre-requisite of providing funding for the projects at Bol’shie Vyazemy. US interactions with the Pokrov biologics plant proved to be more problematic. The US Department of Defence was engaged in two years of initial discussion and planning with the factory. Part of the delay was caused by the eighth-month suspension in January 2002 of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme in Russia because the administration refused to certify that the country was complying with arms control agreements. In September 2002, DOD began its initial threat and vulnerability assessments for physical security improvements at the site and these were completed in December 2002. The project formed part of an estimated US$14 million effort by the DOD to improve security at Russian biological facilities.42 Physical security upgrades at the site were eventually installed which included fences, sensors and video surveillance cameras.43 The slow DOD progress at Pokrov was duplicated at other former BW sites across Russia. It formed part of a wider pattern of stalled US initiatives in this area, with US-Russian negotiations on a bilateral agreement to secure dangerous pathogens also having broken down. In March 2003, the United States General Accounting Office prepared an authoritative report on US programmes to assist improvements in security at sites where Russia stored dangerous biological pathogens. It noted that “while DOD had identified several former biological weapons sites in Russia where it would like to provide biological security assistance, the Russian government had consistently refused to grant DOD access to certain facilities managed by the ministries of Health, Defence and Agriculture”.44 It also indicated that a major animal pathogen institute subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture had been closed to biosecurity assistance. In 2007, the US National Research Council’s Committee on Prevention of Proliferation of Biological Weapons reported that the Pokrov biologics plant had not been included in efforts by the Department of Defence’s Biological Threat Reduction Programme (BTRP) to conduct biological weapons’ infrastructure elimination activities. The Committee noted that this was because, in the case of Pokrov and a number of other former mobilisation facilities, “steps have been taken by the Russian government,

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either directly or through support of privatization efforts, to change the facility’s profile to peaceful uses”.45 By 2002, a number of buildings at the Pokrov site had been sold or leased to private companies engaged in pharmaceutical production and around 500 personnel were employed in commercial activities. Among the concerns operating at the site at this time was the Closed Joint Stock Company Verofarm. On 20 November 2010, it acquired the Enterprise for Production of Finished Drug Forms, which is based at Vol’ginskii.46 Verofarm at that time was one of Russia’s largest manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals and its products dominated the Russian market for domestic oncological preparations.47 Another company is reported to have been spun-off from the Pokrov plant’s Central Factory Laboratory and began the manufacture of lactobacterin at its own facility on the Vol’ginskii site. Meanwhile, the US appears to have acted rapidly to stem the potential flow of any weapons-related technology from the Central Asian FMD Institute (SAYaI) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.48 In October 2003, a US delegation was scheduled to visit the facility to discuss cooperation in the field of microbiology, virology and biotechnology.49 The US interaction with the former branch of VNIYaI appears to have met with success. This is evidenced by the fact that on 11 April 2005, at the 36th meeting in Almaty of the ISTC’s Governing Board, approval was granted to a project aimed at the development of an effective method of indication and identification of B. anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) in soil and the conducting of complex preventive action against this organism in Tajikistan. The lead institution on the anthrax project was none other than SAYaI. It was envisaged that the new Tajikistan project, T1175, would support collaboration between the Dushanbe FMD institute and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory/Centre for Environmental Biotechnology (Berkeley, California, USA).50

From Isolated Cold War Outpost to National Lead-­Edge Plant Pathology Research Centre: The “Rediscovery” of Georgia’s Soviet-Era Time Capsule On 31 October 2000 the author attended a seminar organised by the Georgian Academy of Sciences which focused on the country’s latest achievements in the biosciences. The event was hosted in Tbilisi by the

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Academy’s Institute of Physiology and a distinguished list of talented scientists made keynote presentations. One of the most interesting talks was presented by Dr Paata Imnadze, director of the National Centre for Disease Control (the former Georgian Anti-Plague Centre). It focused on the fate of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences’ Scientific-Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia, which was the Soviet Union’s principal centre for the breeding of primates for BW testing.51 A number of newspaper and journal articles published around this time had reported on armed attacks that were subsequently conducted during the civil war in Abkhazia against the institute and its attached primate colony. It had been alleged that in one of a number of such raids the facility’s collection of pathogenic cultures was seized. However, perhaps the most worrying aspect of the whole affair were reports that the armed band had also had access to a building which had been utilised in the past by military biologists.52 Imnadze reported that a special team had been despatched from Tbilisi to investigate the situation with regard to the Sukhumi culture collection. They found that the collection was in fact both intact and safe and that, despite extremely difficult circumstances, a skeleton crew of scientists still working in the institute had successfully maintained the cultures. The revelations concerning events in Sukhumi had naturally aroused much interest among the participants of the Tbilisi seminar but a more significant disclosure was about to be made during discussions held in the margins of the meeting between the author and two scientists who headed up a secret anti-crop facility based at the seaside resort of Kobuleti in the Adjara Autonomous Republic (Georgia). The more senior scientist, Georgette Naskidashvili, revealed that since 1986 she had been director of the Georgian Branch of VNIIF which had subsequently been renamed as the Plant Immunity Research Institute (see Figs. 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4). Her deputy, who had served in this position since 1984, also participated in the presentation. The two scientists confirmed that their branch had been created in 1959 and that through to 1986, Ushanqi Meparishvili had headed up the facility. It was located at a remote site on the Black Sea coast, close to Kobuleti railway station, and this site had been selected because of its isolation from the main cereal-producing regions in the east of the country. Bounded by the sea and mountains, Kobuleti was particularly well-­ suited to experiments where a high degree of isolation was required. Meanwhile, Georgia as a whole was considered to be of pivotal importance with regard to its highly diverse wheat species. Simultaneously it was

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Fig. 7.2  View of concentric rings of security walls in place at anti-crop BW facility, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

known to be an especially rich source of wheat phytopathogens both because of the ready availability of host reservoirs and favourable agro-­ ecological conditions for infection.53 The Georgian wheat leaf (brown) rust, for example, is characterised by rapid spreading and high virulence.54 Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the meeting in Tbilisi in November 2000 was the disclosure by the Georgian anti-crop scientists that their facility in Kobuleti remained in complete isolation from the outside world with no access to telephone, email or fax facilities. In addition, no salaries had been received from the Georgian authorities in the past 12 months. Somehow, this highly significant facility had not engaged with the international cooperative threat reduction programmes which had been led by a plethora of United States agencies. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union these had sought to provide targeted funding to nuclear, chemical and biological facilities to prevent former weapons scientists being recruited for WMD programmes being pursued by rogue states. However, like the lone Japanese soldiers continuing to believe the war had not ended, it appeared that the Kobuleti facility had, quite remarkably, remained locked and unnoticed, in a Cold War time capsule.

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Fig. 7.3  View of nameplate of the renamed Plant Immunity Research Institute, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

The identification of the Kobuleti anti-crop facility led to a decision late in 2000 by a small UK group incorporating both academics and plant pathologists to undertake a fact-finding mission to this remote part of Georgia. A short time later, on 3 May 2001, the UK group, accompanied by researchers and support staff from the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, departed Tbilisi in a minibus for the long journey to Kobuleti. The first major obstacle to be overcome by the mission was a security checkpoint which had been put in place on the border with the Autonomous Republic of Adjara. It was already dark when the minibus was ordered to halt by armed militia under the control of the regional leader, Aslan Abashidze, and the documents of the British party were carefully examined.55 After some nervous moments the minibus was eventually allowed to proceed and shortly reached its final destination, the small Alik Hotel in the port of Batumi. Here, in an episode reminiscent of scenes from Casablanca, the UK group was met by Alik, a larger-than-life character wearing a fez, who was inordinately proud of his establishment, which offered what were

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Fig. 7.4  View of greenhouse complex, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

considered luxurious facilities in the economically devastated post-Soviet landscape. Later, during that evening of 3 May, Georgette Naskidashvili and her deputy joined the UK visitors at the hotel for dinner and informal discussions. The splendid isolation of the Kobuleti branch of VNIIF was finally at an end.

The Role of Kobuleti in Soviet Military Programmes What makes the Kobuleti branch of VNIIF so significant is the fact that it remained largely in a state of full preservation from the Soviet period with no major organisational or structural changes. During the Soviet era, because of the secret nature of its work, it had remained in a state of internal isolation and there was no interaction with local Georgian institutes. After the collapse of the USSR, the Georgian Academy of Sciences had no interest in integrating the facility within its network because they believed they already had institutes which could duplicate its work.56 The only

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major change therefore, which had occurred since the break-up of the Soviet Union, had been the evacuation of Russian plant pathologists but other than that, the scientific staff and site were fully intact. The British group had stumbled upon the Soviet-era equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb and there was much to learn about GUNIiEPU’s biological warfare programmes at the site. The UK visitors arrived at the facility on the morning of 4 May. During her first presentation, Naskidashvili reported that around 160–170 personnel had been employed at the site but numbers were swelled by the arrival of large numbers of researchers from Bol’shie Vyazemy during the growing season. VNIIF’s branch incorporated an administration building, main building incorporating laboratories, two greenhouse complexes and a secure greenhouse. The whole complex was protected by three concentric rings of security walls with associated guard posts, security wiring and floodlights and so on (see Fig. 7.2). The inner perimeter wall was topped by triple-stranded barbed wire. Internally, there were also elaborate security systems with extensive alarm wiring of all doors and pressure-sensitive pads on windows. The Kobuleti facility was also the site of VNIIF’s main proving ground for the testing of chemical herbicides which occupied an area of 40 hectares.57 In 1970 a sub-branch of the Kobuleti facility was also established in the mountains at Tsagveri to the south-east of Borjomi (South Georgia) where field trials of pathogens on cereals growing in cooler climates were undertaken. Experiments on rice were also undertaken at this site. This sub-­ branch remains operational and affiliated to the Kobuleti facility today.58 A senior plant pathologist formerly employed within the Ekologiya network reports that the Tsagveri site was ideally suited for conducting field trials of plant pathogens. According to him this was “one of the best places in the world for testing virulent pathogens with no cross-contamination from insects”.59 The personnel at the site were very experienced and it was used by the whole anti-crop network. The greenhouse complexes at the Kobuleti site occupied an area of 1 hectare. They incorporated humidity chambers for the germination of fungal spores and a triple system of containment but did not appear to have possessed filter systems. One greenhouse facility of unorthodox construction was isolated behind high security fencing and barbed wire.60 Possibly this had some role connected with production of pathogenic agents but this remains a matter of pure speculation.

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The researchers at Kobuleti did not appear to have been engaged in any work on molecular biology and reported that sophisticated technology was not employed for their work. For instance, only a light microscope was used for morphological studies of fungal spores.61 The facility possessed a very large autoclave capacity for sterilisation. Phytotrons, imported from China, had been installed in the facility in 1980. Seed banks were maintained in small refrigerators but there was nothing of a similar scale to the specialised seed storage facilities maintained at Gvardeiskii in Kazakhstan. A very large pond ensured that an adequate water supply was available during the summer months. Rabbits were bred at the facility and utilised in serological tests. In the first instance Naskidashvili was reluctant to divulge much information to her UK guests and consistently refused to acknowledge that any offensive BW research had been carried out in the past at her facility (see Fig. 7.5). She also offered a highly inadequate and implausible explanation of the very high level of security which was in evidence at the Kobuleti

Fig. 7.5  Georgette Naskidashvili, Director of Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

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facility (“prevention of theft of crops, fire prevention and protection of intellectual property”). However, later Naskidashvili reported that “ninety per cent” of research undertaken by VNIIF’s Georgian Branch during the Soviet era was focused on targets determined by the military as part of the anti-crop programme.62 The facility, she revealed, was engaged in an intensive effort aimed at the isolation of highly virulent plant pathogens (mainly fungal pathogens). Samples of plant pathogens were collected in both Georgia and other regions of the Soviet Union and were then screened at Kobuleti against a wide range of host varieties, local and international, with the most virulent strains being deposited in central Soviet collections. Scientists from the Kobuleti facility were also engaged in a global search for new plant pathogens and research visits were made to Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and China.63 The facility focused on diseases which produced losses in harvests of 80 per cent or more in strategically important crops such as wheat, rice and potatoes.64 Work was conducted on the following plant pathogens at Kobuleti: • Puccinia graminis (causal agent of stem rust) • Puccinia striiformis (causal agent of yellow rust) • Puccinia recondita (causal agent of brown rust) • Phytophthora infestans (causal agent of late blight disease in potatoes) • Magnaporthe grisea (causal agent of rice blast) • Xanthomonas oryzae (causal agent of rice bacteriosis) The work on M. grisea at Kobuleti was part of a much larger Soviet research effort which appears to have been aimed at the weaponisation of this agent (see pp. 140–141). In addition to the work on anti-crop agents, a range of fungicides, herbicides and organic substances were screened at the facility. The chemical programme was, however, only a small part of overall research activity at Kobuleti.65 Addressing the recent history of her institute, Naskidashvili reported that following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Anatolii Makarov, the then director of VNIIF (Bol’shie Vyazemy), had personally intervened and organised the transfer of the Kobuleti anti-crop BW facility to local control within the Georgian Ministry of Science and Technology. As an indicator of its new status, the facility was renamed the Institute of Plant Immunity (IPI). No equipment was removed by the Russians from Kobuleti.66 However, of the 176 scientists employed at the facility during the Soviet period, 116 (including most of the heads of the research

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laboratories who were Russian and most of the younger researchers) were evacuated to the Central Russian Branch of the All-Russian Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology located in Tambov. The total number of staff remaining at Kobuleti was reduced to 54 which included 22 scientists.67 At the time of the UK visit, the Kobuleti institute maintained four laboratories engaged in research on the virulence structure of wheat pathogens, diseases in rice, herbicides and biological control. It also was maintaining a substantive culture collection of wheat rusts (200 strains) and viral plant pathogens.68 The senior management at Kobuleti had been seeking to find a niche outlet for their R&D which did not duplicate or compete with programmes being implemented at other Georgian plant health institutes. The main focus of research at this time in Kobuleti was on diseases in commercial plants and crops (such as kiwi and ochra) which were being newly introduced into Georgian agriculture.69 The facility had also developed links to the Georgian Tea Institute, also based in Kobuleti.70 IPI was also under threat at this time from the local Adjarian authorities who wished to utilise its extensive territory for development of local tourism. The facility occupied a prime site close to Georgia’s major resort town of Kobuleti. The shortages of suitable land in the area for tourist accommodation and so on made the institute a highly attractive target for local planners and developers.71

The UK Ministry of Defence Counters the Critical Proliferation Threat in Kobuleti: The Launch of the Pilot Biological Redirection Project In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, Iran rapidly emerged as one of the primary actors with regard to the acquisition of dual-use biological technologies in Georgia. One of the vehicles used for identification of individual Georgian scientists was the Khwarizmi International Award which was promoted by the Iranian Research Organisation for Science and Technology (IROST). Under the scheme, IROST, which at that time was reported to be one of the most important governmental research centres in Iran, awarded US $5000 to successful applicants who were required to submit detailed information on their previous employment and current research projects.72 Among those Georgians who sought to participate in

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the scheme were the former production director of the STI anthrax vaccine plant based in Tbilisi and a prominent scientist with extensive experience of working on anthrax diagnostics, vaccines and immunoglobulin treatments.73 In addition, the Iranians also sought to focus upon specific microbiological research facilities within Georgia. In July 2000 for example, a senior staff member of the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology in Tbilisi was telephoned on several occasions by a Dr Rakhimin, a Russian speaker, who quite aggressively demanded that an Iranian mission be allowed to visit her facility.74 The Iranian visit was to be organised by a Georgian company, GIO Limited, and was to take place under the auspices of the Iranian Office of the President and the Fund for Biotechnological Research. Rakhimin declared that he had a particular interest in the institute’s collection of drug-resistant strains.75 Subsequently, a Dr N. Maghsoudi of the Biotechnology Research Centre in Tehran contacted the Eliava Institute by fax, informing it that the Iranian mission to Georgia would consist of himself and two colleagues, Dr M. Azizi from the Pasteur Institute of Iran and Dr S.M.  Manavi from the Iranian Technology Cooperation Office. The institute at this time was successful in blocking the visit of the Iranian delegation but feared that against the background of an acute economic crisis it was possible that officials within the Georgian Academy of Sciences would apply pressure to allow the visit to proceed. Iranian organisations also appeared to be seeking to bypass official channels and were targeting individual researchers within the FSU.  For example, a leading expert on the production and utilisation of anti-anthrax immunoglobulins at the Eliava Institute received a fax directly from Iran expressing strong interest in her research programme.76 As has been indicated previously, Iran had expressed a specific interest in former Soviet anti-crop BW-related technologies. It will have been aware that the Institute of Plant Immunity (IPI) in Kobuleti had a critical role in identifying and developing plant pathogens in direct support of the Soviet biological weapons programme. The Georgian anti-crop facility was at this time highly vulnerable, existing, as has already been demonstrated, in a state of complete isolation from the West and with unpaid weapons scientists who presented a major proliferation risk. Moreover, until the first Western visit by scientists and academics from the UK, there had been a strong reluctance to come to terms with the implications of the end of the Cold War and to integrate the facility within the mainstream

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international scientific community. There is evidence that the Iranians, lacking the means to directly approach IPI, attempted to use an intermediary to establish contact with the Kobuleti institute. At some point in the late 1990s, a Russian-speaking scientist, based at a former Soviet anti-crop facility, contacted Georgette Naskidashvili, IPI’s director, to enquire whether she would have any interest in receiving a delegation from Iran. Naskidashvili reports that she declined this offer.77 In response to the critical situation prevailing in Kobuleti, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) embarked upon its first pilot biological redirection project involving IPI, which was implemented during the period 2004–2008 as an ISTC “Partner Project”.78 In 2005, the MOD reported that the project, after some early bureaucratic delays, was “proceeding well”. Essential management and technical expertise were provided by the UK Food and Environment Research Agency (DEFRA). Assistance included renovation and re-equipment of laboratories and security systems. Management training, mentoring and strategic planning development were also provided. IPI scientists were funded to study fungal diseases of crops, establish a national collection of microbiological crop pathogens and establish relations with regional counterparts. It was claimed that UK support under this project had helped to strengthen IPI’s role in the surveillance and identification of crop disease in Georgia. For example, in summer 2009 a worrying new disease of potatoes was discovered for the first time in the local Adjara region. In response, IPI are reported to have identified the disease and engaged in dialogue with international experts on how to deal with it. The first annual review meeting of the UK’s Kobuleti project was held in Georgia in September 2005, when the institute was reported to have demonstrated significant progress, both scientifically and strategically. DEFRA’s Central Science Laboratory (Sand Hutton, York) continued in its role as the technical lead of the project, providing technical and management training as well as day-to-day project management. The UK’s third annual report on the Global Threat Reduction Programme released in 2005 noted that “the new director at the Institute has expanded its capabilities through his technical background and contacts with other related institutes. The institute has applied to extend the remit of the project and, following due consideration, MOD has agreed to include in the project an outstation, located in the Tsagveri Gorge region of Georgia. Additional financial allowance was also required in order to address the

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effects of the intermittent power supply on sensitive project equipment. Uninterruptible power supply equipment will be installed shortly.”79 The second annual review meeting was held in Georgia in October 2006 and again was reported to demonstrate impressive technical results, including extensive surveys of commercial crop diseases in the various Georgian geographical regions and the establishment of a national plant pathogen culture collection. IPI was at this time “being encouraged to highlight their technical capabilities to the Georgian Government and to cement their relationships with other related institutes in Georgia. CSL and MOD will support IPI in these efforts to move towards independence and sustainability.”80 In October 2007, a third annual review meeting was held in Georgia and again was reported to be highly positive, “demonstrating the excellent progress achieved by the Institute during the past three years”.81 The MOD were at this time committed to support the institute in its efforts to move towards independence and sustainability.82 In 2010 the UK government released its Seventh Annual Report on its commitments to the Global Threat Reduction Programme, recording progress made in reducing the global threat from dangerous nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical materials. The report indicated that a second, follow-on project had been initiated at Kobuleti and would run until 2011, thus “developing the IPI into a key centre for plant and crop health advice for the region”.83 It was anticipated that the second UK-supported project would directly benefit plant health and agricultural production in Georgia and the wider South Caucasus, and would also help Georgia to meet the requirements of the European Neighbourhood Action Plan in relation to the control of plant diseases essential for the export of various crops, produce and plant material.84 In January 2011, under the terms of Decision No. 185 of the Georgian government, IPI was transferred to the Shota Rustaveli State University in Batumi. It was also renamed at this time as the Institute of Phytopathology and Biodiversity.85

The Yerevan Branch of VNIYaI Emerges as the Main Research Hub of the Armenian Veterinary Sector Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Caucasus Branch of VNIYaI was reorganised initially as the Armenian Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine (Armyanskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii

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institut veterinarnoi meditsiny) under the Ministry of Agriculture.86 More recently the facility appears to have been amalgamated with a livestock breeding facility in Abovian and now forms part of the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre remaining under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture. By 2002, the number of personnel employed within the veterinary facility stood at 50.87 Many of the scientists are reported to have been formerly employed at Gvardeiskii. The collapse of the USSR and the ensuing energy crisis of 1994 resulted in the loss of the collection of dangerous pathogens at the Veterinary Scientific Centre. Subsequently, the facility’s vaccine plant, now under commercial ownership, launched the production of a lapinised FMD vaccine (subtypes OA and Asia 1) and by 2002 was producing one million doses per  annum.88 The centre also continued to pursue an active programme of research with the main focus continuing to be on FMD virus. There was also interest in classical swine fever virus (CSFV), Newcastle disease virus and rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV).89

The Fate of Kazakhstan’s Agricultural Biowarfare Facilities In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, Kazakhstan’s agricultural biowarfare facilities faced the same problems as their counterparts located elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. A typical example was the former reserve BW mobilisation facility, the Almaty Biocombine. Faced with the suspension of large-scale state funding, in a single year spanning the period from September 1992 through to September 1993, the biologics plant lost a quarter of its employees, with staff numbers reduced from 964 to 727 personnel.90 Corresponding cut-backs in production of vaccines were implemented as a result.91 By 1996, the facility lacked the necessary funds with which to purchase essential raw materials and special glass containers, which had forced the plant’s management to suspend the operation of nineteen out of twenty units. In addition, the enterprise’s workers had not been paid for five months and the management had been forced to send them on compulsory leave.92 The pivotal anti-crop/anti-livestock facility in Gvardeiskii, the Scientific-­ Research Agricultural Institute (NISKhI), was not exempt from these problems (see Fig.  7.6). After the collapse of the USSR, Moscow is reported to have immediately terminated all military research and

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Fig. 7.6  View of Soviet-era bioreactors at NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

suspended funding. As a result, the director and several leading specialists departed to work in Russia.93 They reportedly had to leave behind substantive amounts of new equipment which had been recently purchased following significant investment. There was also a leakage of scientific personnel from NISKhI to Kyrgyzstan. During the Soviet period many of the families of the scientists elected to base themselves in Bishkek, the nearest major city to the Gvardeiskii site. According to the Vice President of the Kyrgyz Agrarian Academy, Abdurasulov Yrysbek, several of the personnel formerly employed at Gvardeiskii were in fact of Kyrgyz origin and following the collapse of the USSR they had returned to the Kyrgyz Republic and were now participating in programmes sponsored by his Academy.94 Academician Tsyren Khanduev, a former deputy director at Gvardeiskii, confirmed that a significant number of NISKhI personnel, including himself, were now employed in Kyrgyz research facilities.95 By 1999, NISKhI had lost around half of its personnel.96 The new authorities in Kazakhstan are reported to have had little or no idea as to the nature of the activities which had been underway at

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NISKhI. Kazakhstan’s government, however, committed itself to fully converting the BW facilities on its territory to civil activities. In 1993, Galym Abilseitov, the then Minister of Science and New Technologies, took the decision to form new clusters comprising former military facilities and related civil institutes belonging to the Kazakhstan National Academy of Sciences. In this way, new national centres, managed and funded by the Ministry of Science, were created in the areas of nuclear research, radioelectronics and communications, and biotechnology.97 The last—known as the National Centre for Biotechnology of the Republic of Kazakhstan (NTsB)—was created in accordance with decree No. 1140 issued by the Kazakh Cabinet of Ministers on 16 November 1993.98 NTsB incorporated a number of the leading R&D and production units in Kazakhstan including two of GUNIiEPU’s former BW facilities, NISKhI and the Almaty biologics plant. Moreover, it embraced the Kazakh Science Production Complex Biomedpreparat in Stepnogorsk, which had formerly been Biopreparat’s most important BW mobilisation production facility. This plant, previously known as the Stepnogorsk Scientific Experimental-­ Industrial Base (SNOPB), had incorporated capacity for the production of around 300 metric tonnes of weaponised B. anthracis spores per ten-­ month production cycle.99 While NTsB maintained its headquarters in the very isolated town of Stepnogorsk, a branch HQ was created at the Ministry of Sciences-National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Experimental Biology in Almaty to facilitate communications with international biopharmaceutical companies.100 NTsB was made the head organisation (golovnaya organizatsiya) of a new national civil biotechnology programme within Kazakhstan. This Republican Targeted Scientific and Technical Programme (RTsNTP) was entitled “The utilisation of biotechnological and genetic engineering methods in medicine, agriculture and industry” (“Ispol’zovanie metodov biotekhnologii i gennoi inzhenerii v meditsine, sel’skom khozyaistve i promyshlennosti”) and it incorporated more than 200 individual scientific projects being conducted at 25 R&D facilities. One of the main stated aims of the programme was the conversion of Kazakhstan’s military microbiological facilities but it was also charged with a number of tasks considered of critical national importance including the construction of modern GMP standard biopharmaceutical production facilities; the determination of R&D and production priorities within the bioindustry; the provision of support for fundamental research; the initiation of training schemes to provide a new generation of specialists for the industry; and the

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development of international contacts and collaboration. A number of research areas were selected for priority funding and these included work on development of genetic engineering methods and the creation of gene banks and collections of plant and animal cells, and microbial and viral strains. It was also anticipated that the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Tyuratam), the site of all the Soviet and Russian manned space flights, would also be utilised for the development of space biotechnology.101 In what was a very delicate political situation at the time, it remained unclear whether there had been a total and irreversible transfer of control of Kazakhstan’s BW facilities from Moscow-based organisations to civil bodies under the jurisdiction of the Kazak government. Although Kazakhstan in a strictly legal sense now had full control of these facilities, it appeared possible that Biopreparat and other military agencies closely linked to the former Soviet offensive BW programme may, for a very short period, have continued to play a significant role in key decision-making. One crucial issue concerned the management of NTsB. Initially, Professor Murat Kurmashevich Gilmanov had been appointed as the acting general director.102 However, he was soon replaced by Gennadii Nikolaevich Lepeshkin, the director of Biomedpreparat (Stepnogorsk). Prior to arriving in Kazakhstan in 1984, Lepeshkin had served as a Colonel at the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-Research Institute of Microbiology in Kirov. By 1989 he had been appointed director of Biopreparat’s facility in Stepnogorsk. The concerns over the management of NTsB dissipated with the appointment as director of Erlan Mirkhaidarovich Ramankulov who had no known links to any military programmes.103 In 1999, while it continued to maintain its status as part of NTsB, NISKhI was transferred from Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Energy Industry and Trade. This was only a temporary move, with the facility being permanently transferred to the Ministry of Education and Science in 2001. Five years later NISKhI was renamed as the Scientific Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems (NIIPBB). It was under this latter name that, in May 2008, it organised an international conference in Almaty to mark the 50th anniversary of its foundation. Scientists from the US, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan attended the conference which focused on questions of biological security, biotechnology and virology. Reporting on the event, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Agriculture noted that the institute at this time incorporated 12 research laboratories and was collaborating with scientists from the US, UK, Australia, Egypt, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.104 More recently,

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in November 2009, the institute has been reported to be working on its own vaccine against the influenza A(H1N1) virus with clinical trials anticipated to be completed by March 2010.105 The Institute of Biological Safety Problems had previously been awarded US$800,000 by the United States for work on avian influenza virus.106 It is also one of two facilities in Kazakhstan which were selected under a CTR programme for a US$4 million biosecurity and biosafety upgrade with a view to enhancing the security of its pathogen collection.107

The Use of Former Soviet Weapons Scientists in the War Against Drugs In newly independent Uzbekistan, in the wake of the collapse of the USSR, there was an immediate and total transfer of control of its major anti-crop BW facility, the Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (SANIIF), to a civil organisation devoid of any strong links to the Russian military. In 1992, SANIIF was reorganised as the Institute of Genetics (Institut genetiki) within the Uzbek Academy of Sciences. A UK scientist who visited the institute after independence reported, “I found a very badly run-down set of buildings. Everything that was there was old. Anything of any value appeared to have been removed by the Russians at independence. But most importantly I found a staff who were full of enthusiasm, were full of innovation and were absolutely super scientists.”108 The Uzbek Academy of Sciences is reported to have ordered the full conversion of SANIIF. Academician Abdusattor Abdukarimovich Abdukarimov, a leading bioorganic chemist educated at Moscow State University, was appointed the new director of the facility. In order to comply with the instruction to implement full conversion, he compiled a database of personnel employed at the site and identified those who were former military personnel and those employed in offensive CBW programmes. However, he reported that he had subsequently taken the decision to retain a number of selected laboratories which had formerly been engaged in military programmes. These included a lab previously concerned with testing chemical agents, developed elsewhere in the Soviet Union, on experimental plots at the institute. The laboratory concerned with the maintenance of the collection of strains of plant pathogens was also retained by Abdukarimov. By the mid-1990s, he was able to report

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that military work at his facility “has virtually come to a halt” and that only 5  per cent of its capacity for testing biological and chemical agents was being exploited. The suspension of Soviet military funding does not appear to have led to an immediate financial crisis at the facility. This is principally because the central authorities viewed the institute, which was the first in Uzbekistan to have begun research utilising the latest genetic engineering technologies, as a leading centre of excellence and prioritised it for preferential funding. Its pre-eminent status was underlined by a visit from Islam Karimov, the President of the Republic. In addition, the facility was in receipt of various international grants and also pursued a number of commercial interactions with companies such as the British Technology Group (BTG). Interestingly, by 1996, eleven personnel from the Institute of Genetics were also working abroad on contracts to major foreign commercial biopharmaceutical companies.109 The new Institute of Genetics pioneered genetic engineering research in Uzbekistan and rapidly established its own research group dedicated to R&D in this area, housed in a new Laboratory of Plant Biotechnology. The group took possession of its own gene gun donated by Dupont and rapidly initiated work on the transformation of cultivated tobacco (Nicotina tabacum). A possible spin-off from its military research may have been the extensive screening of strains for their anti-fungal protein production. As a result of this work a new bacterial protein was isolated which was active against the fungal phytopathogens Fusarium and Verticillium. This had commercial potential in the civil agricultural sector and the institute undertook structural studies of the purified protein. Bacterial proteins were also isolated against the fungal pathogen Phytophthora. Subsequently, under the terms of decree No. 4/23 issued by the Praesidium of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences on 13 February 1997, the facility was amalgamated with the Institute of Plant Experimental Biology to form the Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology (IGiEBR)—better known by its English abbreviation, IGEBP (see Fig. 7.7).110 Academician Abdukarimov was appointed director of the new combined facility. The amalgamation and integration of SANIIF with a leading plant biology facility in the civil scientific sector may have been an attempt by the authorities to further dilute any remaining military influence. Whatever the case, by 1998 the newly combined institute employed

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Fig. 7.7  View of Soviet-era phytotrons at the Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 11 December 2002 Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

a workforce encompassing 130 scientists, some reportedly veterans of Soviet BW programmes, along with 250 technical support staff.111 One of the most interesting and unique scientific projects which was supported by an international agency within the former GUNIiEPU network concerns a study by IGEBP—which embraced the former SANIIF— to assess the potential of the fungal pathogens Crivellia papaveracea and Brachycladium papaveris (formerly known as Pleospora papaveracea and Dendryphion penicillatum, respectively) “as an effective, reliable, and environmentally safe biological control agent for opium poppy in realistic field conditions”.112 This study was sponsored by the UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) under the auspices of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and conducted in 1998–2002. Some US$495,000 is reported to have been allocated to this project by the United States and the United Kingdom. According to the official account, IGEBP recovered a “highly virulent” isolate of C. papaveracea/B. papaveris from poppy plants in 1991.

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Researchers at the facility  report that the isolate caused 50–75  per cent losses in licit and illicit poppy crops—symptoms including damping-off of seedlings and leaf and stem lesions.113 One former weapons scientist suggested that the isolate had in fact come from a project originally pursued by VNIIF in 1986 or 1987 which sought to develop a fungicide-resistant agent, based on Helminthosporium papaveris, against opium poppies in Afghanistan, which was at this time under Soviet occupation. The aim was to target areas utilised for the production of opium for supply to the USSR. In the late 1980s, SANIIF is then reported to have attempted to develop a more deadly strain. Initial laboratory experiments proved that the fungus did not attack the 42 basic crops cultivated in Uzbekistan. However, budgetary problems are reported to have prevented the institute from developing the fungus for opium poppy eradication purposes.114 In June 1998, The Sunday Times reported that the UK Foreign Office (one-third) and the US State Department (two-thirds) were jointly funding the project, which engaged 30 researchers, in order to explore the possibility of deploying the fungal pathogen against poppies in countries such as Afghanistan and Tajikistan. According to the newspaper “intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic have been involved from the planning stage and may have a role in the deployment of the fungus”.115 The UK funding of IGEBP, exclusively for the project, which was anticipated to run for a period of 3½ years, is reported to have been made available in 1998. The highly sensitive nature of the project is highlighted by the fact that the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office “sought advice from UK agricultural experts at MAFF and at Natural Resources International Ltd (who provide advice to DfID). Their comments, including an assessment of the risks to legitimate cultivated crops, were incorporated into the final design of the project.”116 A British consultant, Mike Greaves, formerly based at the Long Ashton Research Station, is reported to have been appointed to review and oversee the IGEBP project and, in particular, to conduct a detailed examination of the host specificity of the fungal pathogen.117 In its description of the project, the UK government noted that “there are no indications in progress reports from UNDCP so far of any adverse effect on agricultural crops or of any risk of uncontrolled spread. Research has explicitly eliminated effects on 112 different plant species.”118 In its report on the project, The Sunday Times further alleged that the US and the UK would supply specialist equipment to the Uzbek facility

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and would bring two scientists from Uzbekistan to the UK to “train them in ‘formulation technology’, to make the fungus in sprayable form, and the use of fermenters to produce large quantities of it”.119 In July 1998, the UNODC issued a statement denying the Sunday Times report: “Statements made in the press to the effect that intelligence agents and germ warfare experts are involved in the project are baseless”.120 In October 2000, an episode of the BBC’s Panorama documentary series focused on the research underway at IGEBP. It noted that this was “an astonishing prospect, a biological weapon of mass destruction that could kill these heroin growing opium poppies and end the scourge of the drug forever. Ninety per cent of Europe’s illicit heroin starts life in these Afghanistan fields, a soft target. Trouble is, without the consent of the fundamentalist Taliban administration who collect revenues from this crop, the use of the fungus would be an illegal act of biological warfare.”121 It described how the huge climate controlled cabinets at IGEBP “which once targeted western wheat crops now house the secret fungi that could solve the world’s heroin problem at a stroke. We are the first journalists to witness this.”122 Tom Mangold, the BBC reporter, noted that “research and development of biological weapons carries risks. Is the fungus safe or could it spread uncontrollably? Will it kill only poppies? Could it mutate? Could it hurt animals or humans? Is the research even legal? The questions are endless. The answers often equivocal. This is amateur video tape of the killing field of poppies in which Professor Abdusattor recently conducted his first tests of the fungus, and this is what the fungus did to them. It attacks from the root and kills the opium poppy internally causing a distinctive and terminal wilt. The evidence is conclusive. Pleospora is aggressive, infectious, self-propagating and deadly when used in this way. A few weeks later and we were able to see for ourselves.”123 Most disturbingly of all, Panorama reported that it had gained access to confidential UNDCP documents which “highlight their private fears and anxieties about the project they’re sponsoring. There is awareness that once released the fungus may be difficult to contain. There is even a remote possibility that it may transform or mutate. Worse still is the awareness that development of this capability could open a way for its use in offensive biological warfare targeting food crops. The concerns are justified. Professor Abdusattor is moving ahead with maximum speed and minimum supervision. He’s quietly tested the fungus in neighbouring countries. He’s tested it on animals somewhere. He’s managed to develop a method for spraying the fungus

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onto the poppies. But the question remains, how safe is it? Is there any danger that the fungus may mutate on its own?”124 In January 2001, local news sources reported that Pleospora papaveracea was to be utilised by Uzbek researchers in field tests on small plots over the next three years. The UN apparently estimated that production capacity to treat approximately 2000 hectares of illicit opium poppy crop currently in cultivation could be established relatively easily and at modest cost. Both Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic were at this time reportedly being pressurised to participate in field trials. The UNDCP acknowledged at this time that both Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan had refused to conduct field trials of the fungus.125 In the 2001 trial conducted by IGEBP in Tajikistan, it was discovered that formulations “24”, “25” and “27” caused the most damage including a 60 per cent reduction in plant height and capsule numbers, and 90 per cent reduction in plant weight. However, the formulations (“19” and “1”) which caused the most damage to poppies in Uzbekistan, were found not to be as efficacious in the Tajikistan trial. The researchers concluded that this may have been due to the higher ultraviolet-radiation levels recorded at the Tajikistan site, which was 2500 m above sea level.126 Later the experiments came to the attention of a Moscow-based news agency which reported that both Uzbek and Tajik scientists had participated in the field trials in Tajikistan and that the fungal preparation had destroyed 90 per cent of plants treated at the early stages of growth.127 The international project on poppy eradication undertaken in Uzbekistan was terminated in 2001. It remains fascinating from a number of perspectives. It appears, for example, to represent one of the relatively rare examples of Soviet Cold War technology being utilised by Western countries—in this case in their war against drugs. It also shines an extremely rare light on the powerful anti-crop biological warfare capabilities which were developed within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s secret military network. SANIIF’s successor facility proved to be a reliable and capable international partner with the ability to isolate and develop a powerful anti-poppy agent, to then create a range of formulations and then produce and disperse these in field trials conducted across two countries. Finally, the poppy eradication project provided a very useful model, demonstrating how the former Ekologiya facilities could be integrated within international programmes and successfully redirected to civil objectives.

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Notes 1. Veterinariya, No. 8, 1996, p. 10. 2. See, for example, Rufford, N., Britain funds biological war against heroin, The Sunday Times, 28 June 1998. 3. Interview with former senior scientist working within GUNIiEPU network, 31 January 2002. 4. Interview with former NISKhI researcher, Ala-Acha, Kyrgyz Republic, 12 September 1999. 5. Information provided by deputy director, Plant Immunity Research Institute. Interview conducted at the Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 6. O merakh po razvitiyu agrobiologicheskoi promyshlennosti i ukrepleniyu material’no-tekhnicheskoi bazy veterinarnoi sluzhby, Postanovlenie Soveta Ministrov—Pravitel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, No. 499, 27 May 1993, http://law.optima.ru/View.html?0=23011&1=1, Accessed on the 18 September 2000. 7. Ibid. 8. Savzdarg, E., Combined efforts can solve many problems of phytosanitation, Zashchita rastenii, translated in JPRS, Science & Technology, Central Eurasia, Life Sciences, JPRS-UST-95-018, 24 April 1995; World of Learning 1994, Europa Publications, London, 1994, p. 1256. 9. Rossiiskaya akademiya sel’skokhozyaistvennykh nauk otdelenie zashchity rastenii, http://www.aris.ru/GALLERY/ROS/NAUCH/NII/ RASHN/perehen3_1.html. 10. Savzdarg, E., Combined efforts can solve many problems of phytosanitation. 11. VNIIBZR home page, http://www.biozashchita.newmail.ru/html/ home.htm, Accessed on the 23 May 2000. 12. Homepage of All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Animal Health, http://www.cci.vladimir.ru/arriah/, 12 November 2002. 13. Personal communication to the author from Alex Donaldson, former head of the UK’s Pirbright Institute, 9 January 2021. 14. Personal communication to the author from Alex Donaldson, former head of the UK’s Pirbright Institute, 9 January 2021. 15. American Biogenetic Sciences updates information and proceeds with efforts on vaccine agreements, American Biogenetic Sciences Press Release, 9 January 2002, http://www.mabxa.com/010902a.html, Accessed on the 9 January 2002. 16. American Biogenetic Sciences negotiates landmark anthrax and smallpox vaccine agreement, American Biogenetic Sciences Press Release, 26

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November 2001, http://www.mabxa.com/112601, Accessed on the 26 November 2001. 17. Rakhmanin, P.P., K 100-letiyu agrobiologicheskoi promyshlennosti Rossii, Veterinariya, No. 8, 1996, pp. 8–13. 18. Avilov, V.M., Sostoyanie i zadachi agrobiologicheskoi promyshlennosti v obespechenii stoikogo protivoepizooticheskogo blagopoluchiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Veterinariya, No. 8, 1996, pp. 5–7. 19. Miller, J., Broad, W.J., The Germ Warriors: A special report.; Iranians, Bioweapons in Mind, Lure Needy Ex-Soviet Scientists, The New  York Times, 8 December 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/08/ world/germ-­warriors-­special-­r eport-­iranians-­bioweapons-­mind-­lure-­ needy-­ex-­soviet.html, Accessed on the 4 February 2020. 20. Proliferation: Threat and Response, Office of the Secretary of Defence, January 2001, p. 36, https://fas.org/irp/threat/prolif00.pdf, Accessed on the 16 December 2020. 21. See the entry at www.cals.cornell.edu/dept/bionb/isoptera/ Membersdirectory.html#India and 8th Agricultural Seminar of Iranian Students in Europe 2001, Manchester, UK, www.iran-­student.net/science/agriculture/protection.pdf. 22. Miller, J., The Story: A Reporter’s Journey, Simon & Schuster, New York, April 2016, p. 124. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Miller, J., Broad, W.J., Iran trying to recruit Russia’s germ warriors, The New York Times, 8 December 1998. 26. The Story, p. 125. 27. According to Tucker, the newspaper Kommersant reported that the Director of the Russian institute “gave the Iranians information related to the use of plant pathogens to destroy crops”. Although this is implied, the newspaper text only in fact refers to herbicides, not plant pathogens. Tucker, J.B., Bioweapons from Russia: Stemming the Flow, Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 1999. 28. Warwick, J., Russia’s poorly guarded past, p. A01. 29. Smithson, A., Why cooperative threat reduction still matters—Especially for biological dangers, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 72, No. 5, 2016, pp.  322–331, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108 0/00963402.2016.1216673?src=recsys, Accessed on the 1 December 2020. 30. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, with  R.A., Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 666. 31. Warwick, J., Russia’s poorly guarded past, p. A01.

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32. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (Director, Institute of Plant Immunity), Dining Room, Alik Hotel, Batumi, Achara Republic, Georgia, 3 May 2001. 33. Interview with senior staff member, Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 10 December 2002. 34. Anoyadbekov had formerly been employed at All-Union Scientific-­ Research Experimental Veterinary Institute. Here he had headed up the institute’s 50-hectare test site on Lissi Island. Interview with Dr Muzafar A.  Anoyadbekov (Director of the Central Asian FMD Institute), Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. 35. Miller, J., Broad, W.J., The Germ Warriors. 36. Ibid. 37. Information provided by Giuseppe Tassoni, Managing Director, Technoverde, Reading, 4 February 1999. 38. Bohne, J., Russian scientists pay visit to INEEL, http://www.inel.gov/ resources/newsletters/star/1999/06-­08-­99/0608russian.htm. 39. Dmitriev, N., Russkii uchenyi napugal New  York Times, Kommersant, No. 6(1650), 26 January 1999, p. 4. 40. The Unique US-Russian Relationship in Biological Science and Biotechnology, p. 150. 41. The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and ISTC visited the All-Russian Institute of Phytopathology in Golitsino, 21 September 2009, International Science & Technology Centre, http://www.istc.int/ en/article/7528, Accessed on the 4 February 2020. 42. Weapons of Mass Destruction: Additional Russian Cooperation Needed to Facilitate US Efforts to Improve Security at Russian Sites, Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Financial Management, the Budget, and International Security, Committee on Governmental Affairs, US Senate, United States General Accounting Office, GAO-03-482, March 2003. 43. A Russian source in 2011 provides a listing of sites where physical security upgrades have been installed, The Unique US-Russian Relationship in Biological Science and Biotechnology, p.  44, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/books/NBK201554/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK201554.pdf, Accessed on the 17 February 2020. See also Roffey, R., Unge, W., Clevström, J., Westerdahl, K.S., Support to Threat Reduction of the Russian Biological Weapons Legacy—Conversion, Biodefence and the Role of Biopreparat, FOI-R—0841--SE, April 2003, p. 67, www.foi.se/rest-­api/report/FOI-­ R%2D%2D0841%2D%2DSE, Accessed on the 14 December 2020. 44. Weapons of Mass Destruction, pp. 55–56. 45. The Biological Threat Reduction Programme of the Department of Defence: From Foreign Assistance to Sustainable Partnerships, Committee on

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Prevention of Proliferation of Biological Weapons, Office of Central Europe and Eurasia, Development, Security and Cooperation Policy and Global Affairs, National Research Council of the National Academies, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2007, p. 32. 46. Verofarm: Istoriya, http://www.verofarm.ru/About/history.php, Accessed on the 15 November 2002. 47. Financial results of Verofarm for H1 2007, http://www.veropharm.ru/ news/2007/Q3/427.shtml, Accessed on the 3 September 2007. 48. On the 2 May 2008, SAYaI was renamed by the government of Tajikistan as the Science Production Enterprise (NPP) “Biological Preparations”. On the 7 January 2014, it was reorganised again, as the Institute of Problems of Biological Safety. It remained subordinate to the Tajikistan Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Na RASKhN. Fond 10, http://isaran. r u / ? q = r u / f u n d & g u i d = 5 C 0 8 E 2 2 2 -­C A B E -­4 6 5 E -­ B149-­4CF074004EC6&ida=42, Accessed on the 10 February 2020; Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Respubliki Tadzhikistan ot 7 yanvarya 2014 goda, No. 57 “O pereimenovanii Gosudarstvennogo nauchnogo uchrezhdeniya Nauchno-proizvodstvennoe predpriyatie ‘Biologicheskie preparaty’”, http://www.adlia.tj/show_doc.fwx?rgn=120927, Accessed on the 10 February 2020. 49. Email message from Central Asian FMD Institute (SAYaI), 17 September 2003. 50. Statement of the ISTC Governing Board, http://www.istc.ru/ISTC/ sc.nsf/html/statements-­of-­the-­governing-­board-­36.htm”>ISTC), Accessed on the 22 April 2005. 51. Alibek, K., with Handelman, S., Biohazard, p. 302. 52. Polikarpov, D., Sukhumi: What Monkey Can Stand Up to a Guardsman With a Machine Gun?, Komsomol’skaya pravda, 23 October 1992, p. 4, translated in JPRS Report, Science & Technology, Central Eurasia: Life Sciences, JPRS-92-ULS-024, 30 October 1992. 53. Information provided by deputy director, Plant Immunity Research Institute. Interview conducted at the Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 54. Naskidashvili, G., Sikharulidze, Z., Sources of wheat resistance to the leaf rust population in Georgia, Bulletin of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 157, No. 1, 1998. 55. The Autonomous Republic was tightly controlled by Aslan Abashidze who had successfully pursued a high degree of autonomy within Georgia without precipitating the ruinous civil wars witnessed in other regions of this war-torn country. Wilson, N., Potter, B., Rowson, D., Japiridze, K.,

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Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan, Lonely Planet Publications, London, August 2000, p. 145. 56. Information provided by senior plant pathologist formerly employed within the GUNIiEPU network, 3 February 2002. 57. Information provided by deputy director, Plant Immunity Research Institute. Interview conducted at the Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 58. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (Director), Administration Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001; Interview with senior staff member from Kobuleti, Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 59. Information provided by senior plant pathologist formerly employed within the GUNIiEPU network, 3 February 2002. 60. Observations of Dr Anthony Rimmington, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 61. The microscopes at Kobuleti were of higher magnification than what might have been expected for mycology research. 62. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (Director, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti), at the Dining Room, Alik Hotel, Batumi, Achara Republic, Georgia, 3 May 2001 and at the Administration Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. A reference to weapons scientists at the institute was made in a draft ISTC application prepared by Naskidashvili. 63. Information provided by deputy director, Plant Immunity Research Institute. Interview conducted at the Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 64. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (director), Main Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 5 May 2001. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid, 4 May 2001. 67. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (director, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti), Dining Room, Alik Hotel, Batumi, Achara Republic, Georgia, 3 May 2001. 68. Presentation by deputy director, Plant Immunity Research Institute at seminar held at the Georgian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physiology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 31 October 2000.

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69. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (Director, Administration Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti), Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 70. Interview conducted with senior Kobuleti staff members at the Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 71. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (Director), Main Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia, 4 May 2001. 72. Call for the 13th Khwarizmi International award (KIA), Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST), leaflet. Place and date of publication unknown. 73. Information provided by Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology & Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 74. The Iranian delegation also wished the Eliava staff member to arrange an appointment with the Georgian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Plant Biochemistry. Interview with senior staff member, Immunobiological Laboratory, Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology & Virology, Tbilisi, Georgia, 1 November 2000. 75. Information provided by staff member of the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology & Virology, Breakfast Buffet, Sheraton Metekhi Palace Hotel, Tbilisi, 28 October 2000. 76. Information provided by senior scientist from the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology & Virology, Lobby Cafeteria, Sheraton Metekhi Palace Hotel, Tbilisi, 28 October 2000. 77. Interview with Georgette Naskidashvili (Director, Institute of Plant Immunity), Dining Room, Alik Hotel, Batumi, Achara Republic, Georgia, 3 May 2001. 78. Global Threat Reduction Programme: Fifth Annual Report 2007, The Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), 2007, https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090609045105/ http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file 44740.pdf, Accessed on the 22 November 2019. 79. Global Threat Reduction Programme: Fifth Annual Report 2007, The Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), 2007, https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090609045105/ http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file 44740.pdf, Accessed on the 22 November 2019. 80. The Global Partnership: Fourth Annual Report, 2006, https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100512181011/http://man270109a. decc.gov.uk/media/viewfile.ashx?filepath=what%20we%20do/uk%20 energy%20supply/energy%20mix/nuclear/nonproliferation/global_

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threat/annual_report/file 36547.pdf&filetype=4, Accessed on the 22 November 2019. 81. Global Threat Reduction Programme: Fifth Annual Report 2007, The Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR), 2007, https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090609045105/ http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file 44740.pdf, Accessed on the 22 November 2019. 82. Ibid. 83. The Global Partnership: Seventh Annual Report, 2009, http://tinyurl. com/yhma3oq, Accessed on the 31 March 2010. 84. Ibid. 85. History, Official Website of the Institute of Phytopathology and Biodiversity, date of publication unknown, https://bsu.edu.ge/sub-­22/ page/2-­93/index.html, Accessed on the 17 December 2020. 86. Nersesyan, S.E., Sarkisyan, R.A., Gabrielyan, M.A., Dudnikov, A.I., Mikhalishin, V.V., Kolostral’nyi immunitet i aktivnaya immunizatsiya molodnyaka krupnogo rogatogo skota protiv yashchura, p. 63 in Problemy infektsionnoi patologii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh zhivotnykh: Tezisy dokladov konferentsii, posvyashchennoi 100-letiyu otkrytiya virusa yashchura, 27–31 October 1997, Vladimir, 1997. 87. Information provided during an interview with Professor Vyacheslan Nersesjan (Armenian Ministry of Agriculture’s Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, Yerevan), Hotel Yerevan, Armenia, 21 September 2002. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Information provided by Kairbek Temirbolatovich Sharapidenov (Director) and Stanislav Mikhailovich Abakov (Deputy Director), Almaty Biocombine, Almaty, 26 April 1995. 91. In September 1993, 619,300 litres of liquid preparations and 373,187,000 doses of dry preparations were manufactured. These figures represent severe cutbacks in output compared to the previous September (1992), when the corresponding quantities being produced were 1,099,000 litres and 511,700,000 doses, respectively. See Biznes-karta 94, Meditsinskaya promyshlennost’, Biznes-karta, Moscow, 1994, p. 189; and Meditsinskaya promyshlennost’, Spavochnik predpriyatii i organizatsii otrasli, Vypusk 1, ASU Impul’s, Moscow, 1994, p. 97. 92. Vaccine production in danger, Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 8 February 1996. 93. Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Ye., Yeleukenov, D., Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 16. 94. Information provided during interview with Abdurasulov Yrysbek, Kyrgyz Agrarian Academy, 15 April 1999.

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95. Interview with Academician Tsyren Khanduev, Uzbek Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, 16 April 1999. 96. Bozheyeva, G., Kunakbayev, Ye., Yeleukenov, D., Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan, p. 23. 97. Ibid, p. 17. 98. Sozdan Natsional’nyi tsentr po biotekhnologii, Nauka Kazakhstana, No. 1(13), 1–15 January 1994, p.  1; National Centre on Biotechnology Republic of Kazakhstan, document provided to author by Yurii Aleksandrovich Shapovalov, Deputy Director of the National Biotechnology Centre, Institute of Experimental Biology, Almaty, 21 April 1995. 99. Leitenberg, M, Zilinskas, R.A., with Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 279. 100. Interview with Yurii Aleksandrovich Shapovalov and Roza Ultybaevichi Beissimbaeva, Branch of the National Biotechnology Centre, Almaty, 21 April 1995. 101. Gil’manov, M., Gorizonty biotekhnologii, Nauka Kazakhstana, No. 4(16), 16–28 February 1994, pp. 1–2. 102. Sozdan Natsional’nyi tsentr po biotekhnologii, p. 1; National Centre on Biotechnology Republic of Kazakhstan, document provided by deputy director of centre to Dr Anthony Rimmington, Almaty, Kazakhstan, 21 April 1995. 103. Orazgaliyeva, M., Astana’s National Centre for Biotechnology Pushing the Country toward Scientific Innovation, The Astana Times, 22 September 2016, https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s &source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwisqKfczernAhUF YcAKHQhjCVUQFjADegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fastanatimes. com%2F2016%2F09%2Fastanas-national-centre-for-biotechnology-pushing-the-countr y-toward-scientific-innovation%2F& usg=AOvVaw33PtJ33Q-NWk2HRzuUN4aP, Accessed on the 24 February 2020. 104. Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture, http://www.minagri.kz/news/3392, Accessed on 21 May 2008. 105. http://telegraf.by/world_news/65254.html, 5 November 2009, Accessed on the 12 November 2009. 106. Kassenova, T., Biological threat reduction in Central Asia, Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, 18 July 2008, https://thebulletin.org/2008/07/ biological-­threat-­reduction-­in-­central-­asia/, Accessed on the 24 February 2020.

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107. Scientific Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 10 June 2014, https://www.nti.org/learn/facilities/812/, Accessed on the 24 February 2020. 108. Britain’s Secret War on Drugs, Panorama, Recorded from transmission, BBC-1, 2 October 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/ audio_video/programmes/panorama/transcripts/transcript_02_10_00. txt, Accessed on the 22 October 2019. 109. Interview with senior manager of Uzbek Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Genetics, Tashkent, 20 September 1996. 110. Analiticheskaya informatsiya po institutu genetiki i eksperimental’noi biologii rastenii akademii nauk respubliki Uzbekistan. Information handout collected by Mr Peter Kirkow (a former CREES student) during a visit to the Institute of Genetics & Experimental Biology of Plants. Kindly presented to the author. 111. A June 1998 report gave the number of scientific staff as 200 which included 24 Doctor of Sciences and 70 “other scientists”. Rufford, N., Britain funds biological war against heroin, The Sunday Times, 28 June 1998. 112. Feasibility of Using Mycoherbicides for Controlling Illicit Drug Crops, Committee on Mycoherbicides for Eradicating Illicit Drug Crops, Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Division on Earth and Life Studies, National Research Council of the National Academies, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2001, https://www.nap.edu/read/13278/chapter/8, Accessed on the 25 October 2019. 113. Ibid. 114. Ford, P., At Heroin’s Source: Hope Rises for a Way to Cut Opium Crops Chopping Poppies, Christian Science Monitor, 18 March 1998. 115. Rufford, N., The West’s secret weapon to win the opium war. 116. Drugs control, Bound Volume Hansard—Written Answers, Column: 823W, 27 July 2000, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ cm199900/cmhansrd/vo000727/text/00727w28.htm, Accessed on the 22 October 2019. 117. Ibid. 118. Ibid. 119. Rufford, N., The West’s secret weapon to win the opium war. 120. Poppy Fungus Project Is Not ‘Biological Warfare’, Says UN, United Nations Information Service, UNIS/NAR/643, 1 July 1998. For an Asian perspective on this whole story see Spooky Spores Set Loose on World’s Opium, Tabloid News Services, Bangkok, 14 July 1998. 121. Britain’s Secret War on Drugs, Panorama, Recorded from transmission, BBC-1, 2 October 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/

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audio_video/programmes/panorama/transcripts/transcript_02_10_00. txt, Accessed on the 22 October 2019. 122. Ibid. 123. Ibid. 124. Ibid. 125. Daly, J.C.K., The covert biowar against drugs in Central Asia, Times of Central Asia, 17 January 2001, carried at http://mycoherbicide.net/ NEWS/west_asia_biowar.htm. 126. Feasibility of Using Mycoherbicides for Controlling Illicit Drug Crops. 127. Tajik, Uzbek scientists create fungus killing opium poppies, ITAR-TASS News Agency, Moscow, in English, 1504 gmt, 2 February 2002, carried in Summary of World Broadcasts.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion

Characteristics of the Ekologiya BW Programme The Ekologiya offensive BW programme was in existence for more than three decades, from August 1958 to December 1991. This makes it one of the longest-running such endeavours in the twentieth century. By contrast, for example, the US conducted its offensive anti-crop BW R&D over a period of 24 years, terminating in 1969 after Nixon’s announcement of the unilateral ceasing of its offensive programme.1 Ekologiya was also by far the largest agricultural biowarfare programme the world has ever seen. The estimated numbers employed within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW network ranges from somewhere over 7000 to around 10,000. This is a highly significant figure. For, Leitenberg and Zilinskas estimate that there were only 8000 people involved in the entire US BW programme, 5000 people employed by the Japanese in their endeavour, the British and Canadian BW programme involving probably fewer than 5000 and the Iraqi programme fewer than 500.2 It can therefore safely be stated that the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW programme was of global significance since it clearly eclipses the numbers employed in historic BW programmes pursued by other countries. As in the mainstream BW programme pursued by Biopreparat and the USSR Ministry of Defence, there were two distinct phases of the Ekologiya effort. The first, beginning in 1958, relied on classical microbiology methods for the selection of unmodified, highly virulent pathogens for © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3_8

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potential use in agricultural BW programmes. However, the results left much to be desired and the Soviet military were sceptical that without the use of the newly emerging technologies in molecular biology, success could not be achieved. In the second phase, launched in the early 1970s as an integral part of an expanded Soviet BW programme, there was a new focus within Ekologiya on the development of genetically modified agents. Despite this emphasis on molecular biology, it must be stressed that there is absolutely no evidence that the network succeeded in genetically enhancing any potential BW agents in any way. Another key characteristic of Ekologiya was the existence of mobilisation production facilities. These mirrored those in existence within the sister Biopreparat network and comprised ostensibly civil manufacturing plants which incorporated capacity for production of BW agents in wartime emergency. The key mobilisation facility belonging to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture was the Pokrov biologics factory. A team of UK and US inspectors identified two large production lines with fermenters capable of holding in excess of ten metric tonnes of virus. Virus production at the site was conducted within a network of five underground reinforced concrete bunkers, used both to conceal illicit BW activity and to provide protection against enemy attack. Some, at least, of these bunkers were equipped with row upon row of incubators which held hundreds of thousands of hen’s eggs and are believed to have been constructed to grow massive quantities of virus in order to sustain a strategic weapons system. The degree of secrecy and compartmentalisation within the Ekologiya programme appears to have been extremely high and may have exceeded even that of the Biopreparat programme. This is perhaps evidenced by the fact that, even today, we know far less about the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s BW research programmes and accomplishments than we do about Biopreparat, which has been the subject of many different published accounts, and a high degree of granular detail has been made available to Western academics. By contrast, this account is the first substantive attempt to shed light on the highly secretive agricultural BW network. The culture of strict secrecy was maintained even within each individual Ekologiya institute, with information only being shared with labs working on the same project. There was very little interaction with other institutes in the system, let alone with those which were subordinate to Biopreparat or other agencies. Uniquely, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture even

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maintained its own BW proving grounds and was not reliant on the military for testing its pathogenic agents and/or dispersal systems. Finally, substantive failings in safety systems are known to have occurred in Ekologiya facilities. The most significant of these took place on 8 August 1963, with an escape of the rinderpest virus from the anti-livestock BW institute in Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan. This resulted in a major rinderpest outbreak in Otar, a town located some 6 km to the south of the facility. In its response, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture rapidly instigated a series of emergency measures including the quarantining of Otar with the establishment of five military checkpoints and the creation of a special veterinary team equipped with decontamination materials; cattle infected with rinderpest were seized from their owners and destroyed with the carcasses of deceased animals being burned. The outbreak was only finally eliminated at the beginning of November 1963. This incident was part of a wider pattern of accidents associated with the Soviet offensive BW programme. The most serious of these occurred on Monday, 2 April 1979, when an anthrax aerosol was released from the USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-Research Institute of Bacterial Vaccine Preparations, part of Military Compound Number 19 in Sverdlovsk. This incident led directly to the deaths of at least sixty-eight people in Sverdlovsk and to cases of animal anthrax in nearby villages (Rudnii, Bol’shoe Sedelnikovo, Maloe Sedelnikovo, Pervomaiskii, Kashino and Abramovo) to the south-east of the city. It was the first major indication in the West that the Soviet Union had embarked upon an offensive biological weapons effort.

Soviet Rationale for the Launch of the Ekologiya Programme There is extremely scant information concerning the reason behind the Soviet government’s decision to launch its massive offensive agricultural biological warfare programme in August 1958. Why did the USSR require such a massive offensive BW capability with regard to agriculture? The only explanation offered by senior scientists who worked within the Ekologiya network is that it was a direct response to anti-crop and anti-­ livestock BW programmes launched by the Western powers. Soviet intelligence would have been aware, for example, that by the end of 1953, the US had distributed some 2500 biological munitions containing wheat stem rust to Strategic Air Command bomber bases. These were intended

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for use against the wheat crops of the Soviet Union. The West’s capabilities in this area were bound to provoke a reaction. Ingrained deep within the Soviet consciousness was the dreaded awareness of the severe food shortages and associated famines that had previously been experienced in the Russian Empire and the USSR during the periods 1891–1892, 1918–1922 and 1931–1933, and again in 1946–1947. Excess deaths in the famines of 1918–1922 are estimated to have reached as many as 10–14  million. During the period 1931–1934, Applebaum estimates at least 5 million people perished of hunger in the Soviet Union. This terrible history had had a profound impact on the national psyche and henceforth successive Soviet administrations placed major political importance on the security of the nation’s agriculture and food supply. Conversely, in any period which might arise of total war, the capability of such biological weapons to cause economic damage to an enemy over a period of months or even years may have been considered to be highly desirable by the Soviet leadership. The US offensive BW programme was terminated in 1969. The destruction of its entire anti-crop stockpile was completed by February 1973. However, despite the very public US disarmament in this area, the Ekologiya programme was continued and later expanded during the early 1970s. This placed it in direct violation of a major international disarmament treaty seeking the abolition of biological weapons, the BTWC, which entered into force in 1975. It could have been the case that the USSR was desperately playing catch-up with the US in this area after the damage inflicted on its agricultural science by Trofim Lysenko. It is also undoubtedly the case that elements within the agricultural BW network continued to erroneously claim that, despite the complete absence of any evidence, that the US offensive anti-crop programme had continued beyond the date when it was officially terminated. Similar unfounded claims against the US with regard to offensive biological programmes were made by senior personnel in the Soviet Biopreparat system. Such assertions helped the Soviet Union to promulgate the myth that they were in imminent danger of biological attack from the US and its allies, and served to mask the offensive nature of the grandiose programmes which it pursued. There is a range of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Ekologiya programme may also have been directed, partially at least, towards China. The date of the launch of its programme is in itself suggestive since it coincides with the beginnings of the Sino-Soviet split—the sharp deterioration of relations between the PRC and the Soviet Union. At this time there was

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considerable Soviet concern about China’s massive conventional forces and the Politburo feared they might make a large-scale incursion into Soviet territory. It has been argued that in the event that a conventional war went badly, then the Soviet military might have resorted to nuclear and/or biological weapons to restore their position. The geographic location of the Soviet Union’s secret agricultural BW facilities also appears to be suggestive of at least a partial focus on agricultural targets within China. Two of these were located in Central Asia, near Tashkent in Uzbekistan and near Otar in Kazakhstan. In addition, an anti-crop BW facility was created on 2 December 1959 at Kamen’ Rybolov on the shores of Lake Khanka which traverses the border between Heilongjiang Province, in north-eastern China, and Primorskii krai in Russia. It is conceivable given the position of the Ekologiya facility so close to the Chinese border that in the event of a major escalation of the Sino-Soviet conflict, it would have had a strategic role in facilitating the utilisation of anti-crop agents against Chinese agricultural targets, including the country’s rice crop. It should also be noted that the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea was one of the major focuses of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s secret network. Research to develop biological weapons based on this organism was conducted within a secret programme entitled “Rybolov” and utilised some 20 or so criteria to assess the suitability of plant pathogens as biological weapons against rice. One of the criteria was the ability of the pathogen to spread disease extremely rapidly in this crop. Presumably, China’s military intelligence would have been aware of the construction of the Lake Khanka anti-crop facility and the PLA may have responded with the initiation of its own defensive BW programmes. It is interesting that according to official Chinese accounts, the PRC launched a biological warfare programme in 1958, the same year as the creation of the Soviet offensive agricultural BW network.3 Finally, one must consider the fact that the warped priorities of the Soviet political system meant that only scientific projects with a strong military emphasis were likely to garner support from the Central Committee of the CPSU.  Lead officials within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture may have viewed the Ekologiya programme as representing their only opportunity of securing large-scale funding of their scientific research and catching up with the West in key areas such as genetics and virology. In a similar fashion during the 1970s, the leading Soviet scientist, Yurii Anatol’evich Ovchinnikov, extracted substantial resources for biological sciences research, by stressing to the political leadership the potential military applications of the newly emerging techniques of molecular biology.

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The Achievements of the Soviet Agricultural BW Programme Of all the areas of the Ekologiya programme this is the least well documented and the most difficult to address. What did the many thousands of personnel engaged in this titanic effort, which spanned more than three decades, accomplish? How were the pathogenic agents that were developed to be utilised by the Soviet military? When, in the early 1970s, the second phase of the programme began to use the techniques of molecular biology, what was the impact on R&D and were any agricultural pathogens enhanced with regard to stability, virulence and/or antibiotic-­ resistance? What systems were developed for the tactical and strategic delivery of weaponised agents? In a programme subject to such a high degree of secrecy and with no public release of any substantive historical information since its termination, then the military accomplishments of the Ekologiya scientists cannot be determined with any certainty at all. There is no evidence that the Soviet military agricultural scientists were any less successful than their colleagues working in the mainstream offensive BW programme managed by Biopreparat, or indeed US military scientists focused on agricultural pathogens in the period prior to 1969. Given the extraordinary scale of the Ekologiya research effort and the Soviet programme’s access, like the US, to captured German and, especially, Japanese experts, then it is highly likely that weaponised pathogenic agents were developed against a range of agriculturally important plant and animal targets which are described in detail in the text. Similarly, there appears to be little doubt that dispersal systems, similar to those employed by the US, were developed. Sabotage attacks using anti-crop and/or anti-­ livestock BW agents—which had been widely employed by Germany during the First World War—were probably also considered by the Soviet military. As a result of its activities, the secret network created some of the world’s largest collections of highly virulent plant and animal pathogens. No evidence has ever emerged that any genetically enhanced pathogens were developed or weaponised by the Ekologiya programme. There were undoubtedly some significant civil spin-offs from the military agricultural programme. Ekologiya scientists developed, and introduced commercially, a range of improved veterinary vaccines against both viral pathogens (e.g. FMD virus and rinderpest virus) and bacterial pathogens (e.g. B. anthracis). In addition, BW mobilisation plants belonging to the USSR Ministry of Agriculture produced a wide range of vaccine

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preparations for the civil veterinary sector. Meanwhile, Soviet anti-crop scientists succeeded in amassing a globally significant collection of wheat seed varieties which were resistant to fungal pathogens. However, despite these relatively minor achievements, it is clear that the pursuit of the Ekologiya programme was not beneficial to the USSR as a whole. The scarce human and financial resources of the Soviet Union would have been much better directed to the country’s civil agricultural scientific sector with a view to improving crop yields and livestock productivity, and preventing plant and animal diseases. The detrimental economic impact of the inordinately wasteful pursuit of the Ekologiya programme is unknown but it undoubtedly contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union—the country unable to sustain the ruinous cost of such grandiose military endeavours.

Ekologiya’s Legacy It can be argued that one of the primary legacies of the BW programme managed by the USSR Ministry of Agriculture concerns its impact on civil science and the restoration within the Soviet Union of Mendelian genetics. The secret agricultural network pioneered a move to science-based research within its institutions and moved away from the disastrous pseudo-scientific theories promulgated in the period 1948–1964 by Trofim Lysenko. It is highly significant that one of the first directives issued to Ekologiya institutes in August 1961 focused on an expansion of their work on nucleic acid biochemistry and the need to study the genetics of microorganisms. This was followed in the early 1970s by a major switch in focus to the use of the latest techniques in molecular biology. Domaradskii and Orent note that “the Special Directorate (i.e., GUNIiEPU) of the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR had a fine scientific and industrial base” and left a substantive legacy “of sound scientific and technical research, much as Biopreparat had done. Science-based agriculture—far removed from the disastrous agricultural policies of Trofim Lysenko—was vital for the rise of sophisticated animal husbandry and agriculture in Russia.”4 There is no publicly available evidence to suggest that any of the countries, which have absorbed former Soviet scientific units which participated in the Ekologiya programme, have sought to continue to retain any offensive agricultural BW capability. Perhaps the least transparent of the Soviet successor states with regard to historical BW programmes is the

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Russian Federation. It continues to obfuscate, for example, with regard to the precise nature and origins of the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax disaster. Nearly three decades after the collapse of the USSR, the level of secrecy surrounding the nature and extent of the Ekologiya programme remains extraordinarily high. Russian scientists, who refer to it at all in the published media, continue to argue that it was solely defensive in nature and initiated only as a response to offensive agricultural BW programmes pursued in the West. There may be continuing Western areas of concern with regard to the biological programmes currently being pursued by the Russian Ministry of Defence. Certainly, these remain highly secretive and strictly off-limits to non-Russian personnel. However, as far as Ekologiya is concerned, there have been no reports in the open literature of the continuance of illicit research. All the available evidence strongly suggests that following immediately upon the collapse of the USSR, serious and sustained efforts were made by Russia to reorient activities within these institutes and production plants to the pursuit of civil objectives. As in its sister Biopreparat network, there is now a major emphasis on commercial projects with institutes and production facilities focused on areas such as trials of genetically engineered crops and the supply of vaccines to the local poultry industry. In their recently published comprehensive review of biosecurity in Russia, Zilinskas and Mauger provide a useful, concise summary of the facilities formerly participating in the Ekologiya programme, noting that they are all now open institutions and appear to be involved only in civilian endeavours.5 Clearly, there is always the possibility that some small portions of the agricultural BW programme have been clandestinely retained in Russia, but it is beyond an academic study such as this to penetrate any further. This account of the Soviet agricultural BW programme and its legacy can at least be concluded on a more positive note. There is evidence that during the late 1990s, Iran specifically targeted institutes which had previously been incorporated within the Ekologiya network. However, aside from visits by a handful of individual scientists, there is no evidence of any transfer of scientists, technology or pathogens either to Iran or to other countries of potential proliferation concern. A major reason for this lack of success by the Iranians is owing to the counter-proliferation efforts undertaken by the US and UK in conjunction with former Ekologiya institutes and production plants in the Russian Federation and the other post-Soviet states. The US, in particular, successfully upgraded the security infrastructure at important plant and animal pathogen collections. The UK, on the

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other hand, undertook a unique programme of engagement with an important and highly isolated plant pathology institute in Georgia, redirecting its weapons scientists to participate in national and international civil R&D programmes.

Notes 1. Whitby, S.M., Anticrop Biological Weapon Programmes, in Weelis, M., Rόzsa, L., Dando, M., Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2006, p. 214. 2. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 700. 3. PRC Report on Anti-Biological Warfare R & D, Chinese Government Reports (in Chinese), 1 August 1992, pp. 1–20, translated in JPRS Report, Science & Technology: China, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, JPRS-­ CST-­93-011, 14 June 1993, pp.  13–17; Croddy, E., China’s Role in the Chemical and Biological Disarmament Regimes, The Nonproliferation Review, Spring 2002, http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol09/91/91crod. pdf, Accessed on the 13 June 2008. 4. Domaradskij, I.V., Orent, W., Achievements of the Soviet biological weapons programme and implications for the future, Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics), Vol. 25, No. 1, 2006, pp. 157–158. 5. Mauger, P., Zilinskas, R.A., Biosecurity in Putin’s Russia, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, Colorado, 2018, p. 11.

 Appendix A: Soviet/Russian Abbreviations and Acronyms

Biopreparat

DNISKhI

DVNIIZR

GIEV

Glavbioprom

Biological Preparations All-Union  Science Production Association—subordinate to the Main Administration of the Microbiological Industry under the USSR Council of Ministers (Moscow, Russia) (Vsesoyuznoe  nauchno-­ proizvodstvennoe ob”edinenie biopreparat) Dzhambul’ Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan) (Dzhambul”skii nauchno-issledovatel’skii sel’sko-­ khozyaistvennyi institut) Far-Eastern Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Protection (Kamen’ Rybolov, Primorskii krai, Russia) (Dal’nevostochnyi nauchno-­ issledovatel’skii institut zashchity rastenii) State Experimental Veterinary Institute (Kuz’minki, Moscow oblast’, Russia) (Gosudarstvennyi institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii) USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Administration of the Biological Industry (Moscow, Russia) (Glavnaya upravleniya biologicheskoi promyshlennosti MSKh SSSR)

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Glavetupra GNKI

Gosagroprom GUNIiEPU

IGiEBR

IZIF MGTU

Minsel’khoz

MNTS MSKhP SSSR

USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Veterinary Administration (Moscow, Russia) (Glavnoe upravlenie veterinarii MSKh SSSR) State Scientific-Control Institute of Veterinary Preparations (Moscow, Russia) (Gosudarstvennyi nauchno-kontrol’nyi institut veterinarnykh preparatov) USSR State Agro-Industrial Committee (Moscow, Russia) (Gosudarstvennyi agropromyshlennyi komitet SSSR) USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-­Production Establishments (Moscow, Russia) (Glavnoe upravlenie nauchnoissledovatelskikh i eksperimental’no-­ proizvodstvennykh uchrezhdenii pri Ministerstve sel’skogo-khozyaistva SSSR) Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology (Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan) (Institut genetiki i eksperimentalnoi biologii rastenii) Institute of Applied Zoology and Phytopathology (Leningrad, Russia) (Institut prikladnoi zoologii i fitopatologii) N.E.  Bauman Moscow State Technical University (Moscow, Russia) (Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi tekhnicheskii universitet imeni N.E. Baumana) USSR Ministry of Agriculture (Moscow, Russia) Soyuzno-respublikanskoe Ministerstvo Sel’skogo Khozyaistva SSSR—also abbreviated to MSKh SSSR) Interagency Scientific and Technical Council (Moscow, Russia) (Mezhvedomstvennyi nauchno-­ tekhnicheskii sovet) USSR Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Moscow, Russia) (Ministerstva sel’skogo khozyaistvo i prodovol’stviya SSSR)

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People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Moscow, Russia) (Narodnyi kommissariat zemledeliya) NIIPBB Scientific-Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems—formerly NISKhI (Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan) (Nauchno-­issledovatel’skii institut problem biologicheskoi bezopasnosti) NISKhI Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute—formerly DNISKhI (Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Dzhambul’ oblast’, Kazakhstan) (Nauchnoissledovatel’skii sel’sko-khozyaistvennyi institut) NIVOS Novosibirsk Scientific-Research Veterinary Experimental Station (Novosibirsk, Russia) (Novosibirskaya nauchnaya-issledovatel’skaya veterinarnaya opytnaya stantsiya) NPO Vektor Science Production Association Vektor (Kol’tsovo, near Novosibirsk, Russia) (Nauchno-­ proizvodstvennoe ob”edinenie Vektor) NTsB Kazakhstan National Centre for Biotechnology (Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan) (Natsional’nyi tsentr po biotekhnologii Respubliki Kazakhstan) OGPU United State Political Organization (Moscow, Russia)—a forerunner of the KGB (Ob”edinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie pri SNK SSSR) RASKhN Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Moscow, Russia) (Rossiiskaya akademiya sel’skokhozyaistvennykh nauk or Rossel’khozakademiya) RAO “Rosagrobioprom” Russian Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s Russian Joint Stock Company “Rosagrobioprom” (Moscow, Russia) (Rossiiskoe aktsionernoe obshchestvo “Rosagrobioprom”) SANIIF Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (Durmen’—present-day Yuqori-Yuz, near Qibray, Tashkent, Uzbekistan) (Sredneaziatskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii) Narkomzem

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SKNIIF

SNIFS

STAZR STI TsIAM UzNIVI UIEV VASKhNIL

VIEV

VNIIBMZR

VNIIBZR

North Caucasus Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (Krasnodar, Russia) (Severno-­ Kavkazskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii) Central Russian Scientific-Research Phytopathology Station (Novaya zhizn’, near Tambov, Russia) (Srednerusskaya  nauchno-­issledovatel’skaya fitopatologicheskaya stantsiya) N.I.  Vavilov Institute of Plant Breeding’s Moscow Plant Protection Station (Moscow, Russia) (Moskovskaya stantsiya zashchity rastenii) Red Army’s Sanitary-Technical Institute (Kirov, Russia) (Sanitarno-tekhnicheskii institut) Central Institute of Aircraft Engine Engineering (Moscow, Russia) (Tsentral’nyi institut aviatsionnogo motorostroeniya imeni P.I. Baranova) Uzbek Scientific-Research Veterinary Institute (Uzbekistan) (Uzbekskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii veterinarnyi institut) Ukrainian Experimental Veterinary Institute (Ukraine) (Ukrainskii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii) V.I.  Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (Moscow, Russia) (Vsesoyuznaya akademiya sel’sko-khozyaistvennykh nauk imeni V.I. Lenina) All-Union Experimental Veterinary Institute— the renamed GIEV (Kuz’minki, Moscow oblast’, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii) All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Biological Methods of Plant Protection (Chisinau, Moldova) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchnoissledovatel’skii institut biologicheskikh metodov zashchity rastenii) All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Biological Plant Protection (Krasnodar, Russia) (Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut biologicheskoi zashchity rastenii)

  APPENDIX A: SOVIET/RUSSIAN ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS 

VNIIF

VNIIKhleskhoz

VNIIKhSZR

VNIIPM

VNIISKhR

VNIIVViM

VNIIZR

VNIIZZh

VNIYaI

213

Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (Bol’shie Vyazemy, near Golitsyno, Moscow oblast’, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-­ issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii) All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Chemicalization of Forestry (Ivanteevka, Moscow oblast’) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchnoissledovatel’skii institut khmizatsii lesnogo khozyaistva) All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of the Chemical Means of Plant Protection (Moscow, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut khimicheskikh sredstv zashchity rastenii) All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Applied Microbiology (Obolensk, Moscow oblast’, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-­ issledovatel’skii institut prikladnoi mikrobiologii) All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Agricultural Radiology (Ugodsko-Zavodsk region of Kaluga oblast’, close to Obninsk) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut sel’skokhozyaistvennoi radiologii) All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary  Virology and Microbiology (Vol’ginskii, Pokrov, Vladimir oblast’, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut veterinarnoi virusologii i mikrobiologii) Pushkin All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Protection (Pushkin, Leningrad oblast’, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut zashchitii rastenii imeni Pushkina) All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Animal Health (Yur’evets, near Vladimir, Russia) (Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut zashchity zhivotnykh) All-Union Scientific-Research Foot-and-Mouth Disease Institute (Yur’evets, near Vladimir, Russia) (Vsesoyuznyi nauchno-issledovatel’skii yashchurnyi institut)

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Military-Industrial Commission (Moscow, Russia) (Voenno-promyshlennaya komissiya) Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat Yur’evets Veterinary Biological Preparations Factory (Yur’evets, near Vladimir, Russia) (Zavod Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat) VPK

 Appendix B: Composition of the Scientific and Technical Council (NTS) and Interbranch Scientific and Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS)

USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Scientific and Technical Council (NTS) Members of the Plant Section (23 December 1963)1 Yurii Nikolaevich Fadeev (Director of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology, Bol’shie Vyazemy, Moscow oblast’) N.N. Mel’nikov (Deputy Director of the USSR Ministry of Chemical Industry’s All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of the Chemical Means of Plant Protection, Moscow) Ivan Mikhailovich Polyakov (Director of the All-Union Institute of Plant Protection, Pushkin, near Leningrad) N.A.  Glushenkov (Director of the Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology, Durmen’, near Tashkent) Evgenii Dmitrievich Rudnev (Director of the North Caucasus Scientific-­ Research Institute of Phytopathology, Krasnodar) V.G. Zheryagin (Deputy Scientific Director of the Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii) N.K. Bliznyuk (Appointed to represent the USSR Ministry of Defence. Reported to have operated undercover as the head of a laboratory within VNIIF)

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Interbranch Scientific and Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS) Chair: Academician Viktor Mikhailovich Zhdanov (1971–1975); Vasilii Dmitrievich Belyaev (1975–1979); Rotislav S.  Rychkov (1979–1985); Valerii Alekseevich Bykov (1985–) Secretariat (Administrative Department) Chair: Igor’ Valerianovich Domaradskii (1973–1982); Major General Dmitrii Vladimirovich Vinogradov-Volzhinskii (1982–) Secretariat (Administrative Department) Deputy Chair: Colonel Lev Aleksandrovich Klyucherev (1973–) Members Representing USSR Ministry of Agriculture: Major General Mikhail Aleksandrovich Khudyakov (~1975–1984); Petr Ivanovich Morozov Representing Biopreparat: Major General Vsevolod Ivanovich Ogarkov (1973–1979); Lieutenant General Yurii Tikhonovich Kalinin (1979–); Kanatzhan Baizakovich Alibekov Representing USSR Ministry of Defence’s Fifteenth Administration: Major General Vladimir Andreevich Lebedinskii (1971–); Colonel General Efim Ivanovich Smirnov (~1975–1987) Representing USSR Academy of Sciences: Yurii Anatol’evich Ovchinnikov (1971–1988); Georgii Konstantinovich Skryabin (1971–) and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Baev (1971–) Representing USSR Ministry of Health: Lieutenant General (Reserves) Avetik Igant’evich Burnazyan (1971–) Representing Glavmikrobioprom: Vasilii Dmitrievich Belyaev (1971–1975); Anatolii Aleksandrovich Skladnev (1971–); Sos Isaakovich Alikhanyan (1971–)



Appendix C: Lead Scientists in the Ekologiya Programme

Bakulov, Igor’ Alekseevich, He was born in Sverdlovsk on 13 August 1925. He served in the Soviet Army and had fought in the Second World War. He graduated in 1951 from the Military-Veterinary Faculty of the Moscow Veterinary Academy. During the period 1962–1963, he served as an instructor in the Agricultural Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the RSFSR.  From November 1963 through to 1990 he served as director of VNIIVViM. He was a recipient of the USSR State Prize.2 Burdov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich, Doctor of Veterinary Sciences. He was a participant in fighting against Japan during the Second World War. He demobilised and studied at the Kiev Veterinary Institute. From 1959 to 1962 he was a postgraduate at the All-Union Experimental Veterinary Institute and subsequently employed as the Chief Veterinary Doctor within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Veterinary Administration. While serving in this role, he defended his Candidate’s dissertation, was  appointed director of NISKhI in 1964 and completed his doctoral thesis in Gvardeiskii on the African horse sickness (AHS) virus. He was then appointed as a head of a department within GUNIiEPU’s central apparatus. In 1981, he was appointed concurrently as director of VNIYaI and head of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Brazzaville Veterinary Scientific Laboratory (ROC).3 He served as director of VNIYaI until 1992.4 Dunskii, Viktor Fedorovich, Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences (1963). He was born on 15 December 1913 in Lithuania. He was the son © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3

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of a Soviet diplomat who attended secondary schools in the United Kingdom and Germany. He graduated in 1937 from the N.E.  Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MGTU) and served in an unknown capacity in the Second World War. He studied as a  postgraduate at the Central Institute of Aircraft Engine Engineering (TsIAM) and here obtained his Candidate of Technical Sciences degree. Initially he took up a position of senior scientific worker at TsIAM. In 1955 he was directed to the agricultural sector and appointed to a position at STAZR. In 1958 STAZR was incorporated into the newly formed VNIIF. From 1961 to 1978, he served as head of VNIIF’s Laboratory of Agricultural Aerosols. From 1978 to 1991, he continued as a scientific consultant at VNIIF. Dunskii authored 170 scientific works and supervised 10 Candidate’s dissertations. He died at the age of 79 on 30 October 1993.5 Fadeev, Yurii Nikolaevich, Doctor of Biological Sciences (1970), Professor (1972), Academician of VASKhNIL (1973). He was born on 16 March 1927. During the period 1952 through to 1956, he was a junior scientific worker at the Scientific-Research Institute of Fertilizers and Insect Fungicides. From 1957 to 1959 he served in the Soviet armed forces. He served as director of VNIIF from 1963 to 1974. From 1970 through to 1982 Fadeev occupied the powerful position of Academician-­Secretary at the V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL). From 1982 to 1988 he was the head of  a VNIIF laboratory. He served concomitantly as deputy director at the All-Union Scientific-­ Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology. He was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council which coordinated the Ekologiya programme. He was rewarded for his role in the Ekologiya programme with two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour (1966, 1971), an Order of the Badge of Honour (1979) and four medals of the USSR. He died on 20 August 1988.6 Gusev, Anatolii Alekseevich, Doctor of Veterinary Sciences (1991), Professor. He was born in Gomel’ on 21 February 1947. From 1968 to 1972, he studied at the Vitebsk Veterinary Institute. During the period 1972–1987 he was employed at VNIYaI, where he was eventually a head of laboratory. In 1988, he was appointed director of NISKhI and served in this position through to 1992. He is the author of more than 400 scientific publications and holder of 60 patents. He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour in 1986.7 Ivanov, Vitalii Fedorovich, Candidate of Veterinary Sciences. He was the founder and director (1972–1991) of the Central Asian Branch of VNIYaI and awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour.8

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Kobyl’skii, Gennadii Ivanovich, He graduated from Orenburg University and was then a postgraduate at the Siberian Institute of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (Irkutsk). After a decade serving as professor and head of the Department of Botanical Sciences and Physiology at Kalmyk State University (Elista) he was transferred in 1979 to NISKhI. Here, Kobyl’skii was appointed head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Immunity. In 1984, he was concomitantly appointed as deputy scientific director at NISKhI. In 1987, he was appointed for a period of two months as acting director at NISKhI. From September 1989 to December 1991 he served as deputy scientific director at SANIIF. In December 1991 he was transferred to SNIFS. Lagutkin, Nikolai Alekseevich, Professor, Doctor of Veterinary Sciences. He was born in 1932. He was the long-term head of a laboratory at VNIIVViM, where he led work on aerosol vaccination and jet generators for producing aerosols. He was a virologist with a special interest in avian influenza. Lagutkin authored more than 300 scientific publications and more than 50 inventions. On 14 July 2005, Lagutkin, along with a number of colleagues from VNIIVViM, was tragically killed in a traffic accident when returning from a veterinary conference.9 Laktionov, Adrian Mitrofanovich, Major General, Professor, Doctor of Veterinary Sciences. He was born in L’gov (Kursk oblast’) in 1905. He graduated from the Moscow and Khar’kov veterinary institutes and began his scientific work in 1930. In 1934 he wrote a book on “The Diseases of Horses, Their Prevention and Treatment”. At some point around 1938–1939 he was appointed for a year or so as director of the State Scientific and Control Institute of Veterinary Preparations (GNKI). From November 1944 through to 1946, Laktionov headed up the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s Main Veterinary Administration (Glavvetupra) and in 1945 was awarded the Order of Lenin for his service. In 1953 he defended his doctoral dissertation on equine infectious anaemia (EIA), a blood-borne infectious viral disease in horses. He subsequently served as the first head of GUNIiEPU.10 In November 1960, he was appointed concurrently as acting director of VNIYaI.11 Lebedev, Vladimir Borisovich, Professor. He was born in Saratov on 14 August 1938. From 1967 through to 1973 he had been based at the Saratov Agricultural Institute and had completed his Candidate’s dissertation on brown rust in 1970. From 1973 to 1982 he served concurrently in the Georgian Branch of VNIIF (Kobuleti) as deputy scientific director and head of the Laboratory of Phytotoxicology and the Laboratory of

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APPENDIX C: LEAD SCIENTISTS IN THE EKOLOGIYA PROGRAMME

Fungal Diseases of Rice. In 1988, Lebedev was appointed director at SANIIF and concomitantly headed up its Laboratory of Immunity of Grain Crops. He served as director until 1993.12 Makarov, Anatolii Andreevich, He was born on 29 November 1930 in Khovanshchino (Kimovsk raion, Tula oblast’). During the period 1949–1954 he studied at the K.A.  Timiryazev Moscow Agricultural Academy. He is linked during this period to work at the Bitsa Technical College for Selection and Seed Production of Grain Crops, which just four years later was to be the location of the newly created facilities, VNIIF and VNIIVViM. In 1954, he was appointed chief agronomist for the Orel oblast’. During the period 1957–1960 he was engaged in postgraduate studies at the K.A. Timiryazev Moscow Agricultural Academy. He was subsequently awarded his Candidate of Agricultural Sciences degree. In 1960, he was appointed head of a laboratory at the N.I.  Vavilov All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Husbandry’s Maikop Experimental Station. From 1962 to 1974 he served in a number of lead positions within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. These ranged from senior agronomist in the Main Administration of Agricultural Sciences, Propaganda and Introduction of Best Practice to the first deputy head of the Main Administration of Potato, Vegetable and Gourd Crops. He served as director of VNIIF from 1974 to 2000 and as a deputy director from 2000 to 2013. He was awarded the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of the Badge of Honour. He is the author of 60 scientific publications, including 2 books.13 Polyakov, Ivan Mikhailovich, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences (1962), Professor (1967). He was born in Ufa on 7 January 1909. From 1926 to 1930 he was a student at Kazan’ Institute of Agriculture and Forestry. He was employed as a plant pathologist from 1930 to 1931 at the Kazan’ Forestry Institute and joined VIZR as a postgraduate in 1932. By 1938 he was the institute’s deputy scientific director. He was appointed head of VIZR in 1941 and served in this position until 1971. He served concomitantly as head of the Laboratory of Phytotoxicology at the institute. He died on 30 October 1976. He was awarded the Order of Lenin (1966), Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1950) and two Orders of the Badge of Honour (1957 and 1958). He is the author of more than 200 scientific publications including 1 monograph. He held 23 author’s certificates for inventions.14 Safonov, Georgii Anatol’evich, Doctor of Biological Sciences (1985), Professor (1990), Corresponding member of Russian Academy of Sciences (2014). He was born on 24 July 1933 in Bryansk. He graduated from the Moscow Veterinary Academy in 1958. From 1958 to 1959 he served as a veterinary epidemiologist in the Veterinary Department of the USSR

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221

Ministry of Agriculture. He joined VNIIVViM in May 1959 and by June 1978 was a deputy director at the facility. He served from May 1979 to 1995 as director of the Pokrov biologics plant. In 1989, he was appointed concomitantly as head of a laboratory at VNIIVViM. He was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1982 for his research on aerosol vaccination of agricultural livestock and also awarded the Orders of the Red Banner of Labour and Badge of Honour. He died on 9 February 2020.15 Sanin, Sergei Stepanovich, Doctor of Biological Sciences (1999), Professor (1999), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2013). He was born on 25 October 1937 in the port of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov, Krasnodar krai, Russian Federation. From 1955 to 1960 he was a student at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (Moscow). From 1960 to 1974 he was employed as head of the Department of Aerobiology at SKNIIF and then transferred to VNIIF in 1974 and served as deputy scientific director from 1982 to 2000. He also served as director of VNIIF from 2000 to 2014 and was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour (1977). He is the author of 300 scientific papers including 30 books and brochures and 3 author’s certificates for inventions.16 Stepanov, Konstantin Mikhailovich, Professor. He was born in 1900 in the village of Solodinki in the Astrakhan guberneria. He graduated from university in 1922 and then worked at the Astrakhan Plant Protection Station. In 1928 he completed higher courses in zoology and phytopathology at the Institute of Applied Zoology and Phytopathology (IZIF) in Leningrad. For the next 30 years he was based at VNIIZR in Pushkin, Leningrad. Initially, he was employed in the laboratory of Professor Artur Arturovich Yachevskii, one of the lead figures in mycology and phytopathology in the USSR.  Later he founded and was head of VIZR’s Laboratory of Phytopathological Forecasts. On 1 December 1958, he was appointed head of VNIIF’s Laboratory of Epiphytotiology of Cereal Crop Diseases. He was awarded the Order of the October Revolution and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.17 Syurin, Vasilii Nikolaevich, VASKhNIL Academician (1985), Doctor of Veterinary Sciences (1958) and Doctor of Biological Sciences (1968), Professor (1959). He was born on 23 December 1915 in Irbei (Krasnoyarsk krai), Russia. He graduated from the Moscow Zooveterinary Institute in 1938 and remained at the facility as a postgraduate student until 1941. From 1955 through to 1958 he served as director of the State Scientific-­ Control Institute of Veterinary Preparations. In 1958 he joined the Soviet Union’s newly created secret BW network and was appointed as head of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and

222 

APPENDIX C: LEAD SCIENTISTS IN THE EKOLOGIYA PROGRAMME

Microbiology (VNIIVViM), serving concurrently as head of its Department of Virology. He served as head of GUNIiEPU from Autumn 1961 until 1968.18 From 1965, he also held scientific and teaching positions within the Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine. He was awarded the Prize of the USSR Council of Ministers (1983), the Order of the Badge of Honour and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1965). He is the author of 400 scientific publications, including 30 books and pamphlets. He held 30 author’s certificates and patents. He died on 15 May 2004.19 Tverskoi, Dmitrii Lukich, Professor, Doctor of Biological Sciences. Born in 1904, he graduated in 1927 from the Institute of Applied Zoology and Phytopathology (IZIF) in Leningrad. During the period 1927 through to 1935, Tverskoi served concomitantly as head of the Department of Phytopathology at the Abkhazia Agricultural Experimental Station in the South Caucasus, and head of the Phytopathology Department at the All-Union Scientific-Research Plant Protection Institute—VIZR (Pushkin, Leningrad). From 1935 to 1958 he occupied a number of key positions in Soviet plant pathology, serving concomitantly as head of a laboratory within the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Beet Cultivation, head of the Section of Tobacco and Makhorka Diseases in Artur Arturovich Yachevskii’s Laboratory of Mycology and Phytopathology (Leningrad) and head of the Laboratory of Phytopathology at STAZR. Subsequently he was appointed first director of VNIIF (Moscow oblast’). He served concomitantly as head of VNIIF’s Laboratory of Fungal Diseases of Potato and Vegetable Crops. He died in 1995.20 Vishnyakov, Ivan Fedorovich, Professor (1989), Doctor of Veterinary Sciences (1988). He was born on 21 October 1939 in Kurtye Khutora. He graduated from the Moscow Veterinary Academy. From 1963 to 1964 he worked on ASF at NISKhI. In 1964 he returned to the Moscow Veterinary Academy where he was initially employed as a postgraduate. He joined VNIIVViM in 1968 and was employed there as a researcher until 1972. He was then appointed for a period of two years as a senior virologist at the Soviet Veterinary Laboratory in Afghanistan. He returned to VNIIVViM in 1974 and was appointed head of the institute’s Laboratory of Diagnostics in 1977. In 1979 he was appointed deputy scientific director. Vishnyakov served as director of VNIIVViM from 1990 to 1999. He was considered a major scientific authority on ASF in the Soviet Union. He is the author of around 300 scientific publications and 12 books and brochures and also holder of 42 author’s certificates and 26 patents and inventions. He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour (1979) and the Prize of the USSR Council of Ministers (1984). He died on 1 January 2000.21

  APPENDIX C: LEAD SCIENTISTS IN THE EKOLOGIYA PROGRAMME 

223

Notes 1. Pestitsidy i khimicheskaya voina, Problemy khimicheskoi bezopasnosti, Union of Chemical Safety, UCS-INFO.210, 18 January 1997. 2. Ibid. 3. Rakhmanov, A.M., Glushko, B.A., Voennoe pokolenie sotrudnikov vsesoyuznogo nauchno-issledovatel’skogo yashchurnogo instituta— FGBU “Federal’nyi tsentr okhrany zdorov’ya zhivotnykh (k 70-letiyu Pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine), p. 8 in Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(13), May 2015, p. 4, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/news/smi/ veterinary/veterinary-­13-­2015.pdf, Accessed on the 30 May 2019. 4. Ibid. 5. Monodispersnye Tekhnogennye Aerozoli, Materialy k simpoziuymu po nauchno-tekhnicheskoi probleme: Sozdanie i vnedrenie monodispersnykh tekhnologii szhiganiya zhidkikh uglevodorodov i vneseniya pestitsidov vzamen polidispersnykh, 5 September 2013, Bol’shie Vyazemy, Moscow oblast’, 2013, https://www.agroxxi.ru/upload/shop/monodistechaero. doc, Accessed on the 26 September 2019. 6. Stranitsy istorii, Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut fitopatologii, http://www.vniif.ru/vniif/history/, Accessed on the 18 September 2019. 7. Gusev Anatolii Alekseevich, Entsiklopedii, slovari, spravochniki, http:// www.cnshb.ru/AKDiL/akad/base/RG/000304.shtm, Accessed on the 7 December 2020. 8. Sotrudniki FGBU “VNIIZZh” ne zabyvayut svoikh veteranov i v Krymu!, http://arriah.ru/en/node/3846, 13 August 2015, Accessed on the 30 November 2020. 9. The Regnum Information Agency, 15 July 2005, http://www.regnum.ru/ news/484257.html, Accessed on the 15 July 2005. 10. Veterinariya v period velikoi otechestvennoi voiny (iyun’ 1941—mai 1945 g.), https://veterinarua.ru/stati-­i-­issledovaniya/1005-­veterinariya-­v-­ period-­v elikoj-­o techestvennoj-­v ojny-­i yun-­1 941-­g -­m aj-­1 945-­g .html, Accessed on the 11 October 2019. 11. A.A.  Dorofeev was appointed as his Deputy Scientific Director. See Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na krutom perelome, Veterinariya Segodnya, No. 2 (5), May 2013, https://www.fsvps.ru/fsvps-­docs/ru/ news/smi /veterinary/veterinary-­5-­2013.pdf, Accessed on the 31 May 2019. 12. Lebedev Vladimir Borisovich, Entsiklopediya izbestnye uchenye, https:// www.famous-­scientists.ru/2151/, Accessed on the 16 October 2019. 13. Strainitsy istorii, Official website of the All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology, 18 December 2015, http://webcache.

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APPENDIX C: LEAD SCIENTISTS IN THE EKOLOGIYA PROGRAMME

googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zUusfbIMtA4J:www.vniif.ru/ vniif/history/+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk, Accessed on the 3 December 2020. 14. Polyakov Ivan Mikhailovich, http://www.cnshb.ru/AKDiL/akad/base/ RP/000464.shtm, Accessed on the 2 December 2020. 15. Safonov, Georgii Anatol’evich, Entsiklopedii, slovari, spravochniki, http:// www.cnshb.ru/AKDiL/akad/base/RS/000178.shtm, Accessed on the 10 December 2020. 16. Akademiku Saninu Sergeyu Stepanovichu—80 let!, Russian Academy of Sciences, 25 October 2017, http://www.ras.ru/news/shownews. aspx?id=bfaafef5-­a8ae-­4bf1-­8acd-­b73a1b4bd1b0&print=1, Accessed on the 2 December 2020. 17. Stepanov, Konstantin Mikhailovich, Vikipediya, https://ru.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Степанов,_Константин_Михайлович, Accessed on the 23 September 2019. 18. Khanduev, Ts.Ts., My Life. 19. Syurin, Vasilii Nikolaevich, Vikepediya, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ %D0%A1%D1%8E%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%92%D0%B0%D1 %81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%BA%D 0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87, Accessed on the 8 April 2019. 20. Tverskoi, Dmitrii Lukich, Vikipediya, https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Тверской,_Дмитрий_Лукич, Accessed on the 27 September 2019. 21. Vishnyakov Ivan Fedorovich, Entsiklopedii, slovari, spravochniki, http:// www.cnshb.ru/AKDiL/akad/base/RV/000323.shtm, Accessed on the 1 December 2020.

Index

A Abashidze, Aslan, 169 Abdukarimov, Abdusattor Abdukarimovich, 182 Abilseitov, Galym, 180 Abkhazia, 167 Aerobiology experiments using P. striiformis, 144 group at SANIIF, 49 SANIIF work on, 95 Sanin’s project, 95 SKNIIF work on, 52, 95 Stepanov’s work on, 45, 95, 99 Aerosols DIA reports on military applications, 126 large-scale experiments at NISKhI, 59 work of Dunskii at VNIIF, 45 work on jet generators at VNIIVViM, 55 Afghanistan, 131 African horse sickness virus NISKhI work on, 58, 138 VNIIVViM work on, 138

African swine fever (ASF) virus NISKhI work on, 58, 138 VNIIVViM work on, 54, 138 Akhmerov, R.Kh., 56 Aleksandr Nikolaevich Burdov appointed head of VNIYaI, 54 Alibek, Ken account of early termination of Ekologiya, 101 as member of MNTS, 80, 146, 216 history of Soviet agricultural BW programme, 22 number of personnel employed in Ekologiya programme, 62 on delivery of agricultural BW agents, 119 on Ekologiya linkages to anti-­ personnel BW programme, 117 on production of agricultural biological weapons, 110 on production of anti-crop biological weapons, 112 on reserve BW role of Almaty Biocombine, 111 weaponisation of FMD virus, 134

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Rimmington, The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare Programme, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73843-3

225

226 

INDEX

Alikhanyan, Sos Isaakovich as member of MNTS, 216 All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (VNIIF) interaction of scientists with Iran, 160 visit of Iranian delegation, 161 visit to USA, 164 All-Union Institute of Plant Protection (VNIIZR) role in creation of NISKhI, 55 All-Union Science Production Association Biopreparat parallels with GUNIiEPU, 34 production of restriction enzymes, 81 reserve mobilisation production facilities, 110 All-Union Scientific-Research Experimental Veterinary Institute (VIEV) creation of Lisii Island FMD lab, 16 evidence of defensive and offensive BW research, 17 transfer of personnel to new FMD institute, 15 All-Union Scientific-Research Foot-­ and-­Mouth Disease Institute (VNIYaI) creation, 52, 53 creation of Caucasus Branch, 89 creation of Central Asian Branch, 89 creation of Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat factory, 53, 90 interaction with NIIS, 82 Reorganized as Animal Health Institute, 158 status as CMEA coordination centre for FMD, 90 work on FMD virus, 134 work on rinderpest virus, 130

All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Agricultural Radiology (VNIISKhR) creation, 91 role in Chernobyl disaster, 91 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Biological Methods of Plant Protection (VNIIBMZR), 164 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Chemicalization of Forestry (VNIIKhleskhoz), 100 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Experimental Veterinary Science (VIEV) evacuation to Omsk, 18 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (VNIIF) appointment of Makarov as director, 94 appointment of Tverskoi as director, 43 creation, 34, 42 creation of Central Russian Branch, 89 creation of Estonian station, 86 creation of molecular biology lab, 81 creation of station on Sakhalin Island, 88, 142 creation of Yakutia branch, 88 expansion in 1970s, 84 Far-Eastern Branch, 66, 140, 142 Georgian Branch, 140, 142 lead anti-crop facility in Ekologiya programme, 48 numbers employed, 62 transfer to Bol’shie Vyazemy, 46 work on Magnaporthe grisea, 140 work on Phytophthora infestans, 141 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Protection (VNIIZR) role in creation of VNIIF, 43

 INDEX 

All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Potato Farming, 93 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of the Chemical Means of Plant Protection (VNIIKhSZR) manufacture of tactical herbicides, 100 All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology & Microbiology (VNIIVViM) appointment of Syurin as head, 38 Bakulov appointed as head, 42 creation, 34, 42 creation of cell culture collection, 54 development of ASF vaccine, 139 development of VNIIVViM anthrax vaccine, 137 interaction with NIIS, 82 Laktionov appointed as head, 42 major focus on anthrax, 136 major focus on ASF and AHS viruses, 138 reorganization as All-Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Virology and Microbiology, 158 role in construction of Pokrov biologics plant, 113 Syurin appointed as head, 42 transfer to Vol’ginskii, 54 work on FMD virus, 134 All-Union Scientific-Research of Applied Enzymology, 81 All-Union State Scientific-Control Institute of Veterinary Preparations, 137 Almaty Biologics Combine, 178 as BW reserve mobilisation facility, 111 numbers employed, 63 American Biogenetic Sciences, Inc. (ABI), 159

227

Anderson, Jack, 114 Anisimov, Boris Vasil’evich, 93 Anoyadbekov, Muzafar A. invited to visit Iran, 163 Antibiotic sesquiterpenes trichodermin, 51 Anufriev, Aleksandr Ivanovich, 90 Argentina attempt to repatriate German scientists from, 20 Armenia, 134, 177 creation of Caucasus branch of VNIYaI, 89 Athelia rolfsii (southern blight), 25 Australia, 181 Azizi, M., 175 B Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) contaminated vaccine at Orel Biofactory, 137 creation of VNIIVViM vaccine, 137, 138 development of STI vaccine, 137 first experiments on at Kuz’minki, 13 imperial Russia work on, 136 production of vaccine at Almaty Biocombine, 111 production of vaccine at Pokrov, 160 production of weaponized spores, 180 STI live vaccine, 111 VNIIVViM vaccine, 111 weaponised spores, 111 work on at SAYaI, 163 work on at VNIIVViM, 54 Baev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich as member of MNTS, 216

228 

INDEX

Bakulov, Igor’ Alekseevich, 42, 54 biography, 217 creation of anthrax vaccine, 137 Belekov, Tokturbai, 139 Belyaev, Vasilii Dmitrievich as chair of MNTS, 216 as member of MNTS, 216 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) lack of verification protocols, 79 Biotechnical Institute (Vlasikha), 15 tests of FMD virus on Vozrozhdenie Island, 17 Bipolaris maydis, 3 Bitsa Agricultural Technical College role in creation of VNIIF, 42 role in creation of VNIIF and VNIIVViM, 40 Blagar, A.I., 139 Bliznyuk, N.K., Lieutenant-­ Colonel, 38, 101 as member of NTS, 215 Blome, Kurt architect of Germany’s rinderpest programme, 129 Bluetongue virus work on at NISKhI, 58 Boiko, Arkadii Arkadievich tackling Otar rinderpest outbreak, 132 Brachycladium papaveris, 184 Brazzaville Veterinary Scientific Laboratory, 92 Burdov appointed director, 54 Brezhnev, Leonid, 65 British Technology Group (BTG), 183 Burdov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich appointed director of NISKhI, 57 appointed director of RoC lab, 93 biography, 217 work on ASF virus, 139 Burlakov, Valentin Aleksandrovich, 139

Burnazyan, Avetik Igant’evich, Lieutenant General as member of MNTS, 216 BW Proving Grounds Experimental Proving Ground No. 7, 33 site No. 4 in Karoi Valley, 56 twice-weekly visits by Colonel Khanduev, 56 Vozrozhdenie Island, 111 Bykov, Valerii Alekseevich as chair of MNTS, 216 C Canada CBW programme, 147 Soviet allegations of anti-crop BW research, 27 Caucasus Branch of VNIYaI appointment of Anufriev as director, 90 creation, 89 focus on FMD virus, 134 numbers employed, 63 reorganisation as the Armenian Scientific-Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine, 177 Central Asian Branch of VNIYaI creation, 89, 134 numbers employed, 63 reformed as SAYaI, 163 Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (SANIIF) creation, 34, 48 regime of secrecy, 96 reorganization as Institute of Genetics, 182 research on Puccinia striiformis, 144 role of KGB, 97 testing of biological and chemical agents, 49

 INDEX 

Central Asian Scientific-Research Institute of Soil Science and Plant Breeding (CASAPBSRI), 146 Central Institute of Aircraft Engine Engineering (TsIAM), 45 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) National Intelligence Report on Soviet BW capabilities, 24 Central Russian branch of VNIIF (SNIFS) creation, 89 numbers employed, 62 Central Russian Scientific-Research Phytopathology Station (SNIFS) creation of a Science Production Centre, 156 transfer of anti-crop scientists to, 155, 157 Charles Pfizer and Company, 26 Chernobyl disaster role of SKNIIF in alleviation, 52 Chetveryakov, S.E., 113 Chichkanov, Vladimir Pavlovich, 116 China appointment of Laktionov as advisor to PLA, 38 appointment of Syurin to FMD expedition, 38 export of phytotrons to Ekologiya facility, 172 imports Soviet anthrax vaccine, 111, 138 location on border of anti-crop BW facility, 66 possible response to Ekologiya by PLA, 66 Sino-Soviet border skirmishes, 65 Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) production of vaccine at Pokrov, 160 work on in Armenia, 178

229

Closed Joint Stock Company Verofarm, 166 Cochliobolus miyabeanus (brown spot disease) US work on, 25 Collections of fungal pathogens “world‘s largest” at SANIIF, 49 Collections of pathogen-resistant varieties NISKhI collection, 84 Collections of pathogens VNIIF collecting programme of global significance, 92 VNIYaI holdings of FMD virus strains, 52 Cooper, Julian, 110 CPSU Central Committee & USSR Council of Ministers Agricultural Department, 42 decree on tactical herbicides, 100 launch of the Ekologiya programme, 33, 34 progress report on Otar rinderpest outbreak, 131 report on military significance of viruses and biochemistry of nucleic acids, 36 Crivellia papaveracea, 184 Cuba, 139 Czechoslovakia, 136 D Defoliants focus on wheat and cotton, 50 Denmark, 14 D.I. Ivanovskii Institute of Virology, 35 training of Gvardeiskii personnel, 40 Domaradskii, Igor’ Valerianovich, 205 appointed scientific director at VNIIPM, 83

230 

INDEX

Domaradskii, Igor’ Valerianovich (cont.) head of MNTS secretariat, 80, 216 VNIIVViM work on FMD virus, 134 Dunskii, Viktor Fedorovich appointed head of aerosols lab at VNIIF, 45 biography, 217 Dvoretsky, B.N., 132 E Egypt, 111, 181 Ekologiya programme China as potential target, 202 delivery systems for weaponised BW agents, 119 focus on ASF virus, 138 focus on viral genetics and nucleic acid biochemistry, 36 global significance, 63, 199 international dimensions, 93 interaction with defence ministry and Biopreparat, 82 lead role in restoration of Mendelian genetics, 37 linkages to alleged smallpox programme, 117–119 network conferences, 99 new focus on molecular biology, 81 no evidence of genetically enhanced pathogens, 204 number of personnel, 62, 199 offensive or defensive nature of, 146 problems with retention of staff, 60 regime of secrecy, 96 requirement for restriction enzymes, 81 research on rust diseases, 144 role in civil agricultural sector, 102 safety failings, 201 Scientific-Technical Council (NTS), 35

transfer of military personnel, 39 work on pox viruses, 139 Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology & Virology, 175 Equine infectious anaemia (EIA), 38 Estonia activities of VNIIF station in Kamara, 87 creation of VNIIF station in Kamara, 86 experiments on P. infestans, 142 network of monitoring and diagnosis stations, 91 Estonian Experimental Station of VNIIF creation, 86 focus on P. infestans, 142 Ethiopia, 138 creation of joint plant pathology lab, 93 F Fadeev, Yurii Nikolaevich appointed director of VNIIF, 43 as member of NTS, 215 Far-Eastern Branch of VNIIF numbers employed, 62 reorganization as Far-Eastern Scientific-Research Institute of Plant Protection (DVNIIZR), 157 work on Phytophthora infestans, 142 Fedorov, Lev Aleksandrovich, 22 Flora Programme focus on tactical herbicides, 100 SANIIF work on military herbicides, 100 work on of VNIIF, SKNIIF and SANIIF, 100 Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus first description of causative agent, 18

 INDEX 

first Soviet work on, 133 first work on at GIEV, 14 massive expansion of Soviet vaccine capacity, 134 meeting of VASKhNIL, 22 open-air tests at Shikhany proving ground, 17 outbreak in Taiwan, 4 outbreak in UK, 4 production of lapinised vaccine in Armenia, 178 production of vaccine at Pokrov, 113, 136, 160 R&D at Caucasus branch of VNIYaI, 90 R&D at Central Asian branch of VNIYaI, 90 Scientific-Research Institute for the Study of FMD, 14 Soviet attempt to acquire German experts, 18 Soviet awareness of military potential, 22 Soviet interest in BW potential of Riems institute, 20 spraying of virus over island in Lake Peipus, 19 tests in 1935 to disseminate in combat situations, 126 tests on Gorodomlya Island, 17 tests on Vozrozhdenie Island, 17 vaccine production at Shchelkovo Biocombine, 135 vaccine production at Tabakhmela Biocombine, 135 vaccine production at Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat plant, 136 vaccine production at Yur’evets, 90 work on at NISKhI, 58 work on at SAYaI, 163 Fowlpox virus (FPV)

231

NISKhI focus on, 139 Francisella tularensis (tularaemia), 83 Frosch, Paul, 18 G Gavrilov, Vladimir Andreevich, 162 creation of anthrax vaccine, 137 Geissler, Erhard, 18 Georgia, 207 Academy of Sciences, 170 GIO Limited, 175 Ministry of Science and Technology, 173 National Centre for Disease Control, 167 seminar organised by Academy of Sciences, 166 Georgian Branch of VNIIF creation, 47 evacuation of scientists to Tambov, 156, 174 regime of secrecy, 98 sub-branch at Tsagveri, 171 well-suited to experiments requiring high degree of isolation, 167 work on Phytophthora infestans, 142 Gerasimenko, A.D., General, 55 Germany, 136 BW Role of Blitzableiter Committee, 19 concerns over potential use of rinderpest virus, 128 Insel Riems State Research Institute, 15 invasion of USSR, June 1941, 17 open-air trials of FMD virus for offensive purposes, 18 operation Typhoon, October 1941, 17 Soviet attempt to acquire FMD experts, 18

232 

INDEX

Germany (cont.) Spraying of FMD virus over island in Lake Peipus, 19 SS seek supplies of FMD virus for use against Soviet Union, 19 visit by Vyshelesskii, 14 Gilmanov, Murat Kurmashevich, 181 Ginsburg, Nikolai Nikolaevich, 137 Glavmikrobioprom, 80 Glushenkov, N.A., 215 Goatpox virus NISKhI work on, 139 work on at SAYaI, 163 Goncharov, Vitalii Trofimovich work on aerobiology, 96 Göring, Hermann, Reich-Marshal, 129 Gorodomlya Island location of Red Army BW facility, 17 site of FMD institute and BW facility, 15 tests of FMD virus, 17 Graham, Bob, 117 Greaves, Mike, 185 Gregory, Philip Herries, 44, 45 Grinin, Aleksandr Semenovich, 57 GUNIiEPU interaction with Biopreparat, 83 Gusev, Anatolii Alekseevich appointed director of NISKhI, 57 biography, 218 H Hemileia vastatrix, 3 Hungary, 136 I Iffa-Meriuex, 135 Iminov, M., 93 Imnadze, Paata, 167

India, 138 Insel Riems State Research Institute, 128 model for Soviet FMD institute, 15 refusal to provide FMD virus to SS for use against Soviet Union, 19 seizure by Soviet forces, 19 seizure of equipment by Soviet military, 20 Soviet attempt to acquire FMD experts, 18 Soviet interest in BW potential, 20 Institute for Radiation and Physical-­ Chemical Biology work on nucleic acid biochemistry, 37 Institute of Genetics pioneers genetic engineering research in Uzbekistan, 183 reorganization as Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology (IGiEBR), 183 Institute of Genetics and Plant Experimental Biology contacts made with Iran, 163 creation, 183 work on biocontrol of opium poppies, 186 Institute of Plant Immunity (IPI) creation, 173 renamed as Institute of Phytopathology and Biodiversity, 177 transfer to Shota Rustaveli State University, 177 VNIIF broker Iranian interest in visit, 163 Interdepartmental Scientific-Technical Council for Molecular Biology & Genetics (MNTS)

 INDEX 

creation, 8, 79 expansion and intensification of Soviet BW programme, 37 International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), 93 International Potato Centre (Peru), 93 International Science & Technology Centre (ISTC), 116 UK-Georgian Partner Project, 176 Iran Anoyadbekov invited to visit Razi Institute, 163 approach to Institute of Plant Immunity, 176 emergence as major player seeking to acquire former Soviet expertise, 160 Iranian Office of the President, 175 Iranian Research Organisation for Science & Technology (IROST), 174 Khwarizimi International Award, 174 no BW transfer to, 206 Office of Scientific and Industrial Studies, 161 Pasteur Institute, 175 Recruits Popov and other Moldovan scientists, 164 Tehran Medical Sciences University, 161 visit by VNIIF scientist to Tehran University, 161 visit of Rezayat to VNIIF, 161 Iraq, 199 Use of CW against Iran, 160 Iskov, O., 93 Ivanov, Vitalii Fedorovich, 90 biography, 218 Ivanyushchenkov, Vladimir Nikolaevich

233

work on GTPV, 139 work on rinderpest virus, 130 J Japan Soviet capture of Unit 100 scientists, 129 Japanese encephalitis virus, 35 Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute, 92 Jordan, 159 JOVAC, 159 K Kalinin, Yurii Tikhonovich, Lieutenant General, 81 as member of MNTS, 216 Karimov, Islam, 183 Kashintsevo Biofactory, 137 Kazakhstan, 111, 131, 132, 139, 178 creation of National Centre for Biotechnology (NTsB), 180 Institute of Experimental Biology, 180 Ministry of Agriculture, 181 National Academy of Sciences, 180 Republican Targeted Scientific and Technical programme (RTsNTP), 180 Science Production Complex Biomedpreparat, 180 Kekukh, Ivan Grigor’evich, 130 Kelly, David, 116 Khakimov, A., 93 Khanduev, Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich heads-up research on rinderpest virus, 130 sudden departure from NISKhI, 131 transfer to NISKhI (Gvardeiskii), 39

234 

INDEX

Khasanov, Batyr Achilovich, 49 work on aerobiology, 95 Khitrov, Valentin Sergeevich, 113 Khrushchev, Nikita emphasis on agriculture, 33 Sino-Soviet split, 64 support of Lysenko, 36 Khudyakov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, Major General appointment as head of GUNIiEPU, 39 assigns tasks to Pokrov biologics plant, 113 member of MNTS, 80, 146, 216 orders Pokrov to produce rinderpest vaccine, 133 Klyucherev, Lev Aleksandrovich as deputy chair of MNTS secretariat, 216 Kobyl’skii, Gennadii Ivanovich appointed head of NISKhI lab, 85 appointed scientific director at NISKhI, 85 as deputy scientific director at SANIIF, 49 focus on diseases of cereal crops, 144 transfer to Tambov, 156 Konovalova, Natal’ya Evgen’evna, 46 Konstantin Mikhailovich Stepanov as head of VNIIF lab, 44 interaction with UK’s Gregory, 45 Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolaevich, 135 Kulikova, G.N., 56 Kurchenko, Fedor Petrovich, 57 appointment as head of GUNIiEPU, 39 signs-off recombinant DNA guidelines, 81 Kyrgyzstan, 139, 179, 181 participates in poppy control project, 187

L Laktionov, Adrian Mitrofanovich appointed head of GUNIiEPU, 38 appointed head of VNIIVViM, 42 appointed head of VNIYaI, 53 biography, 219 interview with Khanduev, 39 visit to Gvardeiskii, 40 Lebedev, Vladimir Borisovich scientific director at Georgian branch of VNIIF, 48 Lebedinskii, Vladimir Andreevich, Major General as member of MNTS, 216 Leitenberg, Milton, 13, 25, 35, 62, 63, 126 Lenin, Vladimir, 128 Leningrad Scientific-Research Institute of Forestry, 100 Lepeshkin, Gennadii Nikolaevich, Colonel, 181 Lisii Island creation of FMD lab, 16 evacuation of FMD lab to Omsk, 18 Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Scientific Centre, 178 Loeffler, Friedrich, 18 Loktina, G.I., 88 Lugar, Richard G., 164 Lysenko, Trofim Denisovych, 205 rejection of Mendelian genetics, 36 M Madatov, Ruben Ivanovich, 57 Maghsoudi, N., 175 Magnaporthe grisea (rice blast) focus of VNIIF’s Far-Eastern Branch, 140 Rybolov programme, 140 US military work on, 25, 141

 INDEX 

work on at Far-Eastern Branch of VNIIF, 140 work on at Georgian Branch of VNIIF, 140 work on at Kobuleti, 173 work on at VNIIF, 140 Main Administration of the Biological Industry (Glavbioprom), 155 Main Administration for Scientific-­ Research and Experimental Production Establishments (GUNIiEPU) creation, 34 first head appointed, 38 Khudyakov appointed head, 39 Kurchenko appointed head, 39 reorganization, 155 Syurin appointed head, 38 Main Scientific-Production Administration of the Biological Industry, 155 Makarov, Anatolii Andreevich appointed director of VNIIF, 94 biography, 220 leads delegation to Iran, 162 organises transfer of Georgian Branch of VNIIF to local control, 173 Makhmudovich, Rustam, 49 Maklakova, Galina Fillipovna, 46 Malinovskii, Rodion Yakovlevich, 39 Mamadaliev, Seidigapbar Mamadalievich on termination of military funding, 102 work on aerosol vaccination against rinderpest, 133 work on ASF virus and AHS virus, 138 Mangold, Tom, 186 Manner, Randy E., Major-­ General, 165 Mass rearing of insects

235

Chrysanthemum leaf miner flies, 146 Cryptolaemus beetles, 146 DIA reports on, 126 large-scale output of Trichogramma, 145 Phytoseilus persimilis, 146 Soviet development of technology, 145 Matskevich, Vladimir Vladimirovich creation of virology department at Gvardeiskii, 40 signs Ekologiya programme decree, 34 Mauger, Philippe, 206 Mel’nikov, N.N., 215 Mexico, 93, 143 Microbiological Research Establishment (Porton Down), 44, 45 Mikulski, Barbara, 117 Miller, Judith, 162 Mitin, N.I., 113 Miusov, I.I., 56 Mobilisation preparation system established in early 1920s, 109 Mobilization production plants Stepnogorsk Scientific Experimental-­Industrial Base (SNOPB), 180 Möhlmann, Hubert, 20 Moldova, 145 Academy of Sciences, 164 Institute of Biological Protection (VNIIBMZR), 164 Morozov, Petr Ivanovich, 80 Moscow Plant Protection Station (STAZR) basis for creation of VNIIF, 42 work on aerosols, 45 Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, 91

236 

INDEX

N Nagel, Hanns-Christoph, 19, 128 Naskidashvili, Georgette attends conference in the Philippines, 99 contacted with regard to Iranian interest in visit, 163 first meeting with author, 167 meets with UK group in Batumi, 170 reports on military work of her facility, 173 reports on Soviet anti-rice programme, 141 on reputation of SNIFS, 89 on US BW anti-crop threat, 27 Naval Medical Research Institute (Bethesda) recruitment of Erich Traub, 21 Newcastle disease virus leading Soviet expert, 39 work on at NISKhI, 58 work on in Armenia, 178 Nikonov, Igor’ Vladimirovich, Colonel, 118 Nikurashin, Ivan Nikiforovich, 46 North Caucasus Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology (SKNIIF) creation, 34, 51 numbers employed, 62 Reorganized as Institute of Biological Plant Protection (VNIIBZR), 157 work on aerobiology, 95 Nuclear fallout creation of VNIISKhR, 91 O Obama, Barack, 164 Office International des Épizooties (OIE), 159

Ogarkov, Vsevolod Ivanovich, Major General as member of MNTS, 216 Olshansky, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 36 Onufriev, Vladislav Petrovich appointed head of VNIYaI, 53 Orel Biofactory, 137, 138 Ovchinnikov, Yurii Anatol’evich as member of MNTS, 216 P Paratagonospora nodorum research at NISKhI, 84, 144, 145 Pathogen collections NISKhI collection of P. nodorum, 145 Penionzhko, A.M., Major General, 61 People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) creation of FMD lab on Lisii Island, 16 letters on threat of Rinderpest, 128 opening of first FMD institute, 15 People’s Republic of the Congo (RoC), 92 Peru, 93 Petrov, Rem Viktorovich, 81 The Philippines, 99, 141 Phytophthora infestans (late blight) experiments at VNIIF’s Estonian station, 86–88, 142 isolation of highly virulent strains by VNIIF, 141 Soviet acquisition of new mating type, 143 testing of virulent strains on Sakhalin Island, 142 US work on, 25 work on at Far Eastern Branch of VNIIF, 142 work on at Georgian Branch of VNIIF, 142

 INDEX 

work on at Kobuleti, 173 work on at NISKhI, 84 work on at VNIIF’s Station on Sakhalin Island, 88, 142 Plant protection stations operation in the Russian Federation, 157 Pleospora papaveracea, 187 Podalyan, Vladimir Yakovlevich, 39 Pokrov biologics plant as BW reserve mobilisation facility, 111, 112 creation, 112 degraded security at, 162 failure to include in US infrastructure elimination activities, 165 hosts ISTC conference, 116 numbers employed, 62 spins-off commercial companies, 166 transfer to Rosagrobioprom, 159 US intelligence identifies, 114 Polyakov, Ivan Mikhailovich biography, 220 director of VNIIZR, 22 as member of NTS, 215 sits on Plant Section of NTS, 37 Popov, Nikolai, 164 Puccinia graminis tritici (stem rust) research at NISKhI, 84, 144 work on at Kobuleti, 173 US candidate agent, 25 Puccinia recondita research at NISKhI, 84, 144 work on at Kobuleti, 173 Puccinia striiformis experiments on multiplication of spores, 144 research at NISKhI, 84, 144 research at SANIIF, 144 work on at Kobuleti, 173

237

Pushkin All-Union Institute of Plant Protection (VNIIZBR) basis for creation of SANIIF, 48 launch of anti-crop BW R&D, 22 mass production of Trichogramma, 145 participation in Ekologiya programme, 37 R Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) production of vaccine in Armenia, 134 work on in Armenia, 178 Radioactive fallout uptake of radionuclides, 50 Ramankulov, Erlan Mirkhaidarovich, 181 Rashevskaya, Vera Fedoseevna, 46 Ratner, L.S., Major, 15 appointed director of Lisii Island FMD lab, 16, 18 Republic of the Congo, 54 Rezayat, Mehdi, 161 Rhone Merieux, 135 Richters, Eduard, 18 Rinderpest virus control of in USSR, 127 development of vaccine at NISKhI, 131 launch of Soviet programme on, 130 Nazi attempt to source lethal strain in Turkey, 21 outbreak at Otar, 131–133 tests of vaccine in Otar, 132 US Chemical Corps research on weaponization, 25 work on aerosol vaccination, 133 work on at NISKhI, 58

238 

INDEX

Rockerfeller Institute for Medical Research (Princeton), 21 Rokossovsky, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Marshal, 19, 128 Rothamsted Experimental Station (Harpenden), 44 Rudnev, Evgenii Dmitrievich, 51 as member of NTS, 215 Russia trilateral statement, 115 Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences absorption of former Ekologiya facilities, 157, 158 commercial agreement with ABI, 159 Russian Ministry of Agriculture absorption of former Ekologiya facility, 158 creation of a Science Production Centre based on SNIFS, 156 refusal to grant access to US DOD, 165 Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Veterinary-Bacteriological Laboratory, 13 Russian Science Production Concern Rosagrobioprom role in reorganization of SNIFS, 156 Ryagin, Stepan Trofimovich, Colonel appointed director of NISKhI, 57 Rychkov, Rotislav S. as chair of MNTS, 216 S Sackston, Waldemar E., 60 Safonov, Georgii Anatol’evich biography, 220 consultant for Pokrov biologics plant, 113

role of Pokrov facility in emergencies, 114 speaks at ISTC conference, 116 Sakhalin Island Experimental Station of VNIIF creation, 88, 142 Sakhalin Research Institute of Agriculture, 142 Sanin, Sergei Stepanovich, 88 Aerobiology Project, 95 biography, 221 Sanitary-Technical Institute (STI), 137 Science Production Concern Rosagrobioprom, 159 Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch (STIB) acquisition of Erich Traub, 21 Scientific Phytopathological Laboratory (SPL), 93 Scientific-Research Agricultural Institute (NISKhI) BW proving ground, 35 creation, 35, 55 creation of molecular virology lab, 81 designation as PO Box 46, 56 focus on anti-crop and anti-­ livestock BW, 56 interaction with military R&D institute, 82 interaction with NIIS, 82 interaction with NPO Vektor, 83 major expansion of work on anti-crop agents, 84 major focus on ASF and AHS viruses, 138 numbers employed, 62 outbreak of rinderpest, 131 proposed transfer to Ural’sk, 84 reorganization as Scientific-Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems (NIIPBB), 181

 INDEX 

research on Paratagonospora nodorum, 144, 145 research on Puccinia graminis, 144 research on Puccinia recondita, 144 research on Puccinia striiformis, 144 research on Zymoseptoria tritici, 144 rinderpest vaccine technology transferred to Pokrov, 133 termination of military research, 178 transfer of anti-crop BW scientists to Tambov, 155 transfer of Colonel Khanduev, 39 work on FPV, 139 work on GTPV, 139 work on rinderpest virus, 130 work on SPPV, 139 Scientific-Research Institute for the Study of FMD, 15 Scientific-Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy main primate breeding centre of Soviet Union, 167 Scientific-Research Institute of Hygiene transfer of personnel to VNIIF, 46 Scientific-Research Institute of Microbiology (Kirov), 181 Scientific-Research Sanitary Institute (NIIS), 82 focus on virology, 35 transfer of personnel to GUNIiEPU, 39 Scientific-Technical Council (NTS) creation of Plant Section, 37 membership of Professor Fadeev, 44 Seliverstov, Vasilii Vital’evich, 54, 138 creation of anthrax vaccine, 137 Shchelkovo Biocombine, 135 Sheeppox virus (SPPV) NISKhI focus on, 58, 139 work on at SAYaI, 163

239

Shelepin, Aleksander Nikolaevich, 36 Shikhany proving ground open-air tests of FMD virus, 17 Shver, Evgenii Vladimirovich, 49 Sikharulidze, Zoia, 167, 170 Sitnichenko, A.M., 66 Skladnev, Anatolii Aleksandrovich as member of MNTS, 216 Skomorokhov, Aleksandr Leont’evich, 15 Skryabin, Georgii Konstantinovich as member of MNTS, 216 S.M. Budennyi Zootechnical Institute of Horse-Breeding, 46 Smirnov, Efim Ivanovich, Colonel General as member of MNTS, 216 Sokolov, B.N., 83 Sokolov, Mikhail S., 51 Spiridonov, Yurii, 161, 162 Stalin, Joseph Support of Lysenko, 36 State Experimental Veterinary Institute experiments on anthrax in Kuz’minki, 13 work on FMD virus at Kuz’minki, 14 work on Rinderpest virus, 128 State Planning Commission (Gosplan), 109 Stepanov, Konstantin Mikhailovich biography, 221 Ekologiya memorial conferences, 99 work on aerobiology, 95 Suid herpesvirus 1 work on at NISKhI, 58 Suzdal’ Prison Laboratory focus on anti-livestock BW, 15 Syurin, Vasilii Nikolaevich appointed head of VNIIVViM, 42 appointment as head of GUNIiEPU, 38

240 

INDEX

Syurin, Vasilii Nikolaevich (cont.) appointment of Khanduev as deputy director at Gvardeiskii, 40 biography, 221 tackling Otar rinderpest outbreak, 132 on US CBW threat to agriculture, 26 Syusyukin, Aleksei Andreevich appointed head of VNIYaI, 53

Nazi search for lethal strain of rinderpest virus, 21 Turov, G.V., 56 Tverskoi, Dmitrii Lukich appointed director of VNIIF, 43 biography, 222 focus on P. infestans, 142 lead scientist at VNIIF’s Estonian station, 87

T Tajikistan, 134, 181 Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 163 Central Asian FMD Institute (SAYaI), 163 Council of Ministers, 163 creation of Central Asian branch of VNIYaI, 90 participates in poppy control project, 187 US focuses non-proliferation programmes on SAYaI, 166 Tamarin, A.L., 137 Tilletia indica (Karnal bunt), 3 US weaponisation, 26 Traub, Erich acquisition by British intelligence, 21 acquisition by UK and US intelligence, 21 attempts to infect cattle with rinderpest virus, 129 capture by Soviets, 21 early career and expertise, 20 Troitskyi, Evegenii Nikolaevich work on rinderpest aerosol vaccine, 133 Turdyev, Kh., 93 Turkey, 129

U Ukraine, 145 UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) sponsors work in Uzbekistan on biological control of opium poppy, 184 United Kingdom (UK) acquisition of Erich Traub, 21 Annual Report on Global Threat Reduction Programme, 176, 177 BBC report on poppy control project, 186 CBW programme, 147 Central Science Laboratory, 176 engagement with Georgia, 206 FO funding poppy biocontrol project, 185 Ministry of Defence assistance to IPI, 174, 175 Ministry of Defence embarks upon biological redirection project, 176 Soviet allegations of anti-crop BW research, 27 trilateral statement, 115 UK Food and Environment Research Agency (DEFRA), 176

 INDEX 

UK group visits Kobuleti anti-crop BW facility, 169 Unit 100 work on anti-crop and anti-­ livestock BW, 129 work on rinderpest virus, 130 Urvantsev, N.M., 113 USA anti-crop BW trials, 26 BW programme against crops, 25 CBW programme, 147 CIA report on Soviet STI vaccine, 137 Committee on Prevention of Proliferation of Biological Weapons, 165 considered by Germany for attacks employing FMD virus, 19 Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme, 165 Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), 164 delegation visits SAYaI, 166 destruction of anti-crop stockpile, 27 funding poppy control project, 185 funds security enhancements, 206 German intelligence on rinderpest virus tests, 128 Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP), 164 intelligence assessments of Ekologiya programme, 125–127 intelligence reports on Soviet transmission of FMD virus via ticks, 134 main targets of anti-crop BW research, 25 non-proliferation funding of Ekologiya facilities, 164 Soviet allegations of anti-crop BW research, 27

241

sponsors visit by VNIIF scientists, 164 targets the wheat crops of the USSR, 119 Trilateral statement, 115 upgrade of security at VNIIF, 164 USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, 61 US Department of Defence, 165 US Department of Energy, 164 US General Accounting Office, 165 US intelligence identifies Pokrov facility, 114 US National Research Council, 165 visits of veterinary researchers to USSR, 60 wheat stem rust biological munitions, 119 US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on Soviet agricultural BW capabilities, 125 USSR capture of Unit 100 scientists, 129 failings in domestic agriculture, 28 famines, 202 perceived vulnerability to virological BW, 35 Soviet BW delivery capabilities, 120 USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, 167 virology research, 35 USSR Academy of Sciences participation in Ekologiya programme, 37 USSR Ministry of Agriculture Agreement with defence ministry on Karoi Valley, 56 Brazzaville Veterinary Scientific Laboratory, 93 curtailment of transportation of dangerous pathogens, 133

242 

INDEX

USSR Ministry of Agriculture (cont.) Ekologiya programme, 34 Ethiopian plant pathology lab, 93 focus of new institutes on virology, 35 focus on zoonotic infections, 35 global significance of BW programme, 63 lab in Afghanistan, 131 launch of Ekologiya programme, 34 Main Administration of the Biological Industry (Glavbioprom), 135 Main Veterinary Administration, 38 Makarov takes-up key positions, 95 meeting on FMD, 22 Pokrov biologics plant, 112 Reorganisation as Gosagroprom, 102 report on Otar rinderpest outbreak, 131 reserve mobilization production, 111 7th (Special) Administration, 34 Scientific and Technical Council (NTS), 215–216 special session of NTS, 36 visit by US veterinarians, 61 USSR Ministry of Defence, 181 creation of agricultural BW proving ground, 33 creation of virological BW facility, 35 special session of Ekologiya NTS, 36 transfer of personnel to Ekologiya programme, 39 transfer of personnel to VNIIF, 46 USSR Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MSKhP SSSR), 102 USSR Ministry of Health guidelines on regulation of recombinant DNA research, 81

participation in Ekologiya NTS, 36 USSR Ministry of the Chemical Industry, 100 USSR State Agro-Industrial Committee (Gosagroprom), 102 Uzbekistan, 60, 95, 182 V Vaccines field-trials of veterinary anthrax vaccine, 138 selection of strain Number 55, 138 Van Houweling, Cornelius “Don,” 61 Vasetskaya, M.N., 56 Vasilenko, N.Z., 113 Vasil’ev, Nikolai Nikolaevich, Major General, 82 Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, 35 V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) adoption of Lysenkoism, 36 Fadeev serves as Academician Secretary, 44 Vinogradov-Volzhinskii, Dmitrii Vladimirovich as head of MNTS secretariat, 216 Vishnyakov, Ivan Fedorovich, 131, 139 biography, 222 as head of VNIIVViM, 159 Volovchenko, Ivan Platonovich, 131 Vorob’eva, Yuliya Vasil’evna, 46, 143 Voronkevich, Irina Vladimirovna, 46 Vozrozhdenie Island BW proving ground tests of FMD virus, 17 Vyshelesskii, Sergei Nikolaevich, 14

 INDEX 

W Waldmann, Otto, 18–20 X Xanthomonas oryzae work on at Georgian Branch of VNIIF, 141 work on at Kobuleti, 173 Y Yachevskii, Artur Arturovich, 43 Yakutia branch of VNIIF location, 88 Yhombi-Opango, Joachim, Colonel, 93 Yrysbek, Abdurasulov, 179

Yujiro, Wakamatsu, Major, 130 Yur’evetsvetbiopreparat plant production of FMD vaccine, 136 Z Zaitsev, Valentin Luk’yanovich, 81 appointment to NISKhI, 58 Zezerov, V.V., 118 Zhdanov, Viktor Mikhailovich, 80 as chair of MNTS, 216 Zheryagin, V.G., 56 as member of NTS, 215 Zilinskas, Raymond A., 25, 35, 62–64, 206 Zymoseptoria tritici research at NISKhI, 84, 144

243