Some of the documents cast by Kirillov as evidence of biological weapons research actually concerned the Ukrainian health ministrys cooperation with German experts from BNITM, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, to improve surveillance and diagnosis of diseases like dengue fever and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. As part of this work, WHO has strongly recommended to the ministry ofhealth in Ukraine and other responsible bodies to destroy high-threatpathogens to prevent any potential spills, the UN health agency said. When Russias U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, presented those false claims to the Security Council last week, he scoffed at American denials by mentioning that the diplomats were in the very same room where, in 2003, Colin Powell had held up that famous test tube during his presentation of faulty intelligence on Iraqs suspected weapons of mass destruction. Chief among these is Erhardt Geissler who notes that tularaemia is endemic in the region and in any case a large outbreak occurred during the winter of 1941-1942. Scientists warn that humans should be worried about being wiped out by a killer pathogen that is specifically designed to kill people of only a particular race, based on their genetic material/. Congress. At a briefing in Moscow on March 7, 2022, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov presented documents on recent biological research projects at labs in Ukraine supported by U.S. funding. But because dissenting views have been repressed, and independent broadcasters shut down, Russian scientists have been forced to post their findings on social networks that are mainly blocked in Russia. A report from 2018 on Russian state television claimed that a U.S.-funded lab in the former Soviet republic of Georgia was cover for biological weapons research. Now hes talking about new false flags hes setting up, including hes asserting that, we, in America, have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe. The United Nations security council met earlier this month at Russias request, to discuss Moscows claims that the US is funding military biological activities in Ukraine in other words, secretly developing biological weapons in Ukrainian laboratories. The White House on Wednesday warned that Russia could use "chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine" or could create a "false flag operation" using them, after the Kremlin accused the U.S. of . How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? This particular flu virus belongs to a strain called H5N1. 2. Zombie apocalypse According to Nostradamus, a scientist from Russia will create a biological weapon that create a virus that will turn people into zombies. "[33] They conclude that "In hindsight, we know that with the ultimate failure of the [negotiations] process and the continued Russian refusal to open the facilities to the present day, neither the Yeltsin or Putin administrations ever carried out 'a visible campaign to dismantle once and for all' the residual elements of the Soviet bioweapons program". ???????????? The SIS reports indicate that Zlatogorov and Maslakovets conducted some of their research on a so-called Plague Fort - Fort Alexander 1, located at Kronstadt. However, the officers, doctors and other personnel from Unit 731 were in fact transferred to the comparative comfort of the NKVD special prison camp No. However, General Otoz Yamada, Commander of the Kwantung Army had already ordered the destruction and evacuation of these facilities. The paperwork even indicated that some of the strains had been purchased from Russian labs. On the 9 August 1945, the Soviet Union launched its invasion of Japanese-controlled Manchuria. [1] Annualized production capacity for weaponized smallpox, for example, was 90 to 100 tons. Russian officials, and state-controlled Russian television, repeated the allegations again and again throughout 2018. Red Lies: Biological warfare and the Soviet Union, An Obscure Weapon of the Cold War Edges Into the Limelight, Soviet Army used 'rat weapon' during WWII, Memories of bioweapons developer Domaradsky (Russian), Re-Evaluating Russia's Biological Weapons Policy, as Reflected in the Criminal Code and Official Admissions: Insubordination Leading to a President's Subordination, Bioweapons from Russia: Stemming the Flow, Stepnagorsk Scientific and Technical Institute, Institute of Ultra Pure Biochemical Preparations, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soviet_biological_weapons_program&oldid=1135331140, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. pic.twitter.com/LiFrprWAUt. In the later summer of 1942, in the face of the German offensive to capture Stalingrad, there was a second evacuation of STI, which was eventually permanently relocated to Kirov, located some 896 kilometres north-east of Moscow on the Vyatka river. Marburg virus is also a Category A bio-warfare agent identified by the CDC's classification system and is hosted in African fruit bat. [18] In his uncorroborated account, Alibek claims that capacity for the production of smallpox virus was established in Zagorsk. In addition to the threat of pathogens held in Ukrainian labs leaking or falling into the hands of Russian forces, there is the threat of Russia launching its own biological weapons attack. The first Russian biologist to make his analysis of the evidence widely known wasEugene Lewitin, who holds advanced degrees in biology from Moscow State University and GosNIIgenetika, a biotechnology research institute. The proposal had nothing to do with biological weapons research, and the CDC told The Intercept thatthe project did not receive funding and never even began. A total of fourteen highly detailed reports on the Soviet BW programme were issued in the period 1924-1927. Zlatogorov was in fact one of the world's leading authorities on pneumonic plague and had studied 40 strains of plague bacilli from around the world. Russians test a gun that turns people into zombies Russian President Vladimir Putin says a mind-control gun may be ready within a decade. Written by Tuan Nguyen, Contributor on April 8, 2012. The Russian strategy, of loudly making claims about biological weapons research and pointing to documents that do not, in any way, confirm that to be true has been employed multiple times in recent years. ????????????? In August 1925, he was appointed the first head of the Red Army's Military-Chemical Directorate (Voenno-khimicheskoe upravlenie, abbreviated to VOKhIMU). He didnt take part, but some of his contemporaries did. Thomas-Greenfield said: I will say this once: Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program. She went on to turn the accusation back on Moscow. The Russian Federation is known to possess or have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and chemical weapons.It is one of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.. Russia possesses a total of 5,977 nuclear warheads as of 2022, the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the . [12] However, a number of prominent scholars have disputed Alibek's version of events. She warned that Moscows claim of a secret biological weapons programme in Ukraine could in fact be laying the foundations for a Russian chemical or biological weapons assault. However, the largest epidemic of anthrax in Russia took place in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg) in April 1979. These agents were prepared to be sprayed down on enemy fields from tanks attached to airplanes over hundreds of miles. [17] The new military institute later pursued major programmes focused on variola virus and viral haemorrhagic fevers. The biolab narrative "exploded on social media right . Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, accused Ukraine of operating chemical and biological labs with US support. In a phone call this week, Favorov told me that he suspects some of the Russian militarys wild ideas about what is happening in U.S.-funded labs in former Soviet countries is likely projection. In his account of the Soviet BW programme, Alibek, a former senior manager of Biopreparat, raises the intriguing possibility that in the late summer of 1942 the Red Army engaged in the deliberate aerosol dissemination of Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularaemia) against German panzer troops near Stalingrad. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters: "We can conclude that in Ukrainian laboratories close to our borders, components of biological weapons were being developed. Nostradamus predicted a zombie apocalypse in 2021, citing a Russian scientist who created a biological weapon that produces a virus that - Turns humans zombies. Our group observed nothing out of the ordinary, or that we wouldnt expect to see in a legitimate facility of this sort.. 48 - a tsarist-era red-brick manor house located in Cherntsy (Ivanovo region). The program reportedly includes institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences from Pushchino. He had been a leading participant of a Russian team despatched to combat the October 1910 to February 1911 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Manchuria. "[24], In 1989 the defector Vladimir Pasechnik convinced the British that the Soviets had genetically engineered a strain of Yersinia pestis to resist antibiotics. [6] Upon ratification of the Geneva Protocol, several countries made reservations regarding its applicability and use in retaliation. By way of example, Lewitin, who has a Ph.D. in genetics, pointed to the absolutely wild idea of the existence of special DNA of the Slavs, which could be used to target ethnic Russians with a biological weapon. The State of the War. Among his terrifying prophecies for 2021, the 16th century astrologer hinted that Russian scientists would create a biological weapon that will create a virus which turns people into zombies - and will eventually leave us extinct. Russian scientists who have looked at the documents Russia calls proof of bioweapons labs in Ukraine say there is no evidence for such claims. The threat reduction assisted post-Soviet states in containing and destroying the pathogens in Soviet labs. By 1960, numerous BW research facilities existed throughout the Soviet Union. Robert Mackey[emailprotected]theintercept.com@RobertMackey. The Russian Bioweapons program would be the most capable, deadliest program in the world. He knows therell be severe consequences because of the united Nato front but the point is: its real.. ??????? The development and production were conducted by a main directorate ("Biopreparat") along with the Soviet Ministry of Defense, the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture, the Soviet Ministry of Health, the USSR Academy of Sciences, the KGB, and other state organizations. ???????? In. And chances are . United States. 12 Mar 2022. Those documents were orders from Ukraines health minister, issued on the second day of the Russian invasion, directing labs in two cities, Kharkiv and Poltava, to destroy collections of bacterial pathogens used for research. The Soviet Union continued the development and mass production of offensive biological weapons, despite having signed the 1972 BWC. The WHO has worked in Ukraine for several years helping bio labs improve safety and security, so it knows what it is talking about. In 1998, Alibek reported that "there was significant discussion of the possible use of monkeypox as a biological weapon instead of smallpox. It has been successful in helping former Soviet and other countries fulfill public health obligations. Under Putin, Russia has a biological weapons program, one that it has clearly used to target its opponents. The UN security council met on Friday to discuss Moscows claims the US is funding military biological activities in Ukraine. Favorov, who was a well-known Soviet scientist, used his old connections to help oversee the modernization of labs in the former Soviet states, including the lab in Georgia, while serving as the CDCs regional director for Central Asia from 2000 to 2008. He said there was no chance that the U.S.-funded labs were performing any work on biological weapons. (Most of that long thread was translated into English by Ilya Lozovsky, an editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. [35] At least two agents died, presumably from the transported pathogens. German intelligence reported that the institute was engaged in experiments focused on Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularaemia) and Yersinia pestis (the causative agent of plague). The first set of Ukrainian documents to be made public by the Russian military were published by the Russian government news agency RIA Novosti on March 6. According to the biologists, documents presented to the public last week by Russias defense ministry as supposed evidence of covert bioweapons labs under Pentagon control in Ukraine actually describe relatively harmless collections of pathogens used for public health research. A state lab in Russia's Siberia is beginning research into prehistoric viruses preserved in the remains of animals found in melting permafrost. [12], The Soviet Union reportedly had a large biological weapons program enhancing the usefulness of the Marburg virus. Ukraines ambassador to the world body, Sergiy Kyslytsya, called the idea being advanced by Russia a bunch of insane delirium. Russia's mission in New York called for an emergency meeting Friday, 24 hours after its defense ministry falsely claimed it uncovered "U.S. secret military biological projects in Ukraine," per . Stalin in response ordered an acceleration of BW preparations and appointed Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, the head of the NKVD, in overall command of the country's biological warfare programme. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Tens of thousands of scientists, researchers, doctors, engineers, technicians, and . The article claims that Nostradamus, also known as Michel de Nostradame, predicted a Russian scientist would create a biological weapon and produce a virus that would turn humans into zombies, according to one of his prophecies from a book discovered at the National Library in Rome "which is believed to belong to him." The leniency with which the Japanese BW specialists were treated - the longest sentence any served was seven years - has led a number of scholars to conclude that some sort of deal was struck between the Soviet authorities and the Unit 731 personnel held captive in the USSR. Over the next decade or so, dual-use BW production plants were created at Berdsk, Omutninsk, Penza and Kurgan. ?????????? [12], A production line to manufacture smallpox on an industrial scale was launched in the Vector Institute in 1990. Buildings at the site belonging to a smallpox institute, subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Health, were transferred to the military facility. That, he said, is nonsense that echoes German Nazi propaganda.. [1] [2] In an interview, Pettersson told me that while she had faced a torrent of online harassment because the collaborative research thread was posted on her Twitter account, she was most concerned for the safety of her colleagues in Russia and Belarus who had helped debunk the Russian governments claims despite living in countries where such criticism could bring severe consequences. And weapons developed in secret Soviet labs are still used to poison Russian dissidents and defectors. [10] It was at this time that Ivan Mikhailovich Velikanov[ru], an expert on botulinum toxin and botulism, emerged as the lead scientist in the early Soviet biological weapons program. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "biological weapons, also called germ weapons, are any number of disease-producing agents, such as bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, fungi, toxins, or other biological agents, that may be utilized as weapons against humans, animals, or plants." 1 Throughout history, pathogens have proven to be the most Russia has been saying in recent weeks that Ukraine might possess chemical or biological weapons. Both America and the Soviet Union experimented with anthrax, which can kill people when inhaled. [28] Soviet defectors, including Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov, the first deputy chief of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992, confirmed that the program had been massive and that it still existed. Russia has claimed without any evidence that biological weapons are being developed in laboratories in Ukraine with support from the United States. The Zombie Threat Is Very Real!!! Nostradamus, a locked-in member of the "seer" Mount Rushmore, predicted that a zombie apocalypse will occur in 2021 after a Russian scientist creates a biological weapon that produces a. Both the US and Ukraine have categorically denied they are developing biological weapons inside the country. Yes, and yes. As part of their work the labs do seem to hold dangerous pathogens. Operating under the codename "Ekologiya" (Ecology), the new network incorporated three virology facilities. Biden said those accusations were not merely false, but a sign that President Vladimir Putin. Two major Japanese offensive BW installations at Pingfang and Changchun were overrun by the Red Army. Russia's willingness to use weapons of mass destruction There is no doubt that Russia has a long history of producing chemical and biological weapons. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. "[30] Yeltsin promised to end the Russian bio-weapons program and to convert its facilities for benevolent scientific and medical purposes. The development was conducted in Vector Institute under the leadership of Dr. Ustinov who was accidentally killed by the virus. The list contains only strains common to microbiological and even more so to epidemiological laboratories., More than 800 signatories endorsed Lewitins letter when it was transformed into a petition from Russian biologists urging Russian journalists to stop repeating the governments false, absolutely groundless and hatred-inciting statements about allegedly found evidence of the development of biological weapons in Ukrainian laboratories.. Such was the rapidity and depth of penetration of the attack that, by September, the Red Army's BW facility - the Sanitary Technical Institute (STI) - on Gorodomlya Island, was under immediate threat of capture. What if these labs are creating viruses just like COVID-19?. In the first two years of the program, more than 90 percent of the first 30,000 patients to be treated were cured of the illness. Around 100 personnel from Velikanov's Biotechnical Institute participated in the experiments. Unsecured bioweapons in a war zone are a bad idea, Carlson told his millions of viewers this week.