Soviet biological weapons program

The Soviet Union covertly operated the world's largest, longest, and most sophisticated biological weapons program, thereby violating its obligations as a party to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.^[1] The program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by Russia after that.^[1]^[2]

By 1960, numerous BW research facilities existed throughout the Soviet Union. Although the USSR also signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the Soviets subsequently augmented their biowarfare programs. Over the course of its history, the Soviet program is known to have weaponized and stockpiled the following bio-agents^[3] (and to have pursued basic research on many more):

Bacillus anthracis (anthrax)^[4]
Yersinia pestis (plague)^[4]
Francisella tularensis (tularemia)
Burkholderia mallei (glanders)
Brucella sp. (brucellosis)
Coxiella burnetii (Q-fever)
Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE)
Botulinum toxin
Staphylococcal enterotoxin B
Smallpox^[4]^[5]
Marburg virus
Orthopoxvirus^[4]

These programs became immense and were conducted at dozens of secret sites employing up to 65,000 people.^[1] Annualized production capacity for weaponized smallpox, for example, was 90 to 100 tons. In the 1980s and 1990s, many of these agents were genetically altered to resist heat, cold, and antibiotics. In the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin admitted to an offensive biological weapons program as well as to the true nature of the Sverdlovsk biological weapons accident of 1979, which had resulted in the deaths of at least 64 people. Defecting Soviet bioweaponeers such as Vladimir Pasechnik and Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov confirmed that the program had been massive and still existed. In 1992, a Trilateral Agreement was signed with the United States and the United Kingdom promising to end biological weapons programs and convert facilities to benevolent purposes, but compliance with the agreement—and the fate of the former Soviet bio-agents and facilities—is still mostly undocumented.

^ ^a ^b ^c Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R., & Kuhn, J. (2012). Conclusion. In The Soviet Biological Weapons Program (pp. 698-712). Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbscf.30
^ "2021 Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments". United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
^ Cook, Michelle Stem and Amy F. Woolf (April 10, 2002), Preventing Proliferation of Biological Weapons: U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet States, (Congressional Research Service Report for Congress), pg 3.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Cite error: The named reference kelly02 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ "What happened after an explosion at a Russian disease research lab called VECTOR?". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 27 November 2019.

[:0-1] Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R., & Kuhn, J. (2012). Conclusion. In The Soviet Biological Weapons Program (pp. 698-712). Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press. Retrieved February 7, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbscf.30

[:2-2] "2021 Adherence to and Compliance With Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments". United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2021.

[3] Cook, Michelle Stem and Amy F. Woolf (April 10, 2002), Preventing Proliferation of Biological Weapons: U.S. Assistance to the Former Soviet States, (Congressional Research Service Report for Congress), pg 3.

[kelly02-4] Cite error: The named reference kelly02 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[5] "What happened after an explosion at a Russian disease research lab called VECTOR?". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 27 November 2019.

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