In February 1928, Fishman prepared a key report for Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov (the People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the USSR's Revolutionary Military Council) on the Soviet Union's preparedness for biological warfare. In the 1980s and 1990s, many of these agents were genetically altered to resist heat, cold, and antibiotics. [15], In the immediate post-war period, Lavrenty Beria, the Soviet minister of internal affairs, maintained control of the Soviet BW programme and further developed its offensive capabilities. The samples of Marburg taken from Ustinov's organs were more powerful than the original strain. Imagine you come to a certain office and see an inscription on one of the rooms:Instruction for the cleaner. But a closer look at the records from the lab in Georgia reveals that there was nothing suspicious about the deaths reported in 2015, as Russian officials had claimed. [34], In the 1990s, specimens of deadly bacteria and viruses were stolen from western laboratories and delivered by Aeroflot planes to support the Russian biological weapons program. [6] Upon ratification of the Geneva Protocol, several countries made reservations regarding its applicability and use in retaliation. The theory took on a life of its own on social media under the hashtag #usbiolabs, and found a welcome home among rightwing outlets in the US including the War Room podcast of Donald Trumps former adviser Steve Bannon and the Fox News primetime show hosted by Tucker Carlson. When Russian news outlets repeated these claims, Lewitin,the veteran Russian biologist, wrote that they had been duped into printing what he called deliberately false information,fed to them by the military, about what was in the documents. Asked why the Pentagon provided the money beyond the obvious fact that the Department of Defense is the one part of the U.S. government that is lavishly funded Favorov said that the Pentagon took the lead in the effort to upgrade biosecurity in those countries partly in response to the anthrax attacks in the U.S. that started just a week after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The destruction of the pathogens listed on orders sent to the labs, Konashenkov said, was a desperate effort to conceal any traces of the military-biological program financed by the U.S. Department of Defense in Ukraine., At a defense ministry briefing in Moscow the next day, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov the head of the Russian militarys radiation, chemical, and biological protection force displayed these documents on a huge screen. There are various accounts regarding the relocation of STI, with official Russian sources indicating that it was initially transferred to Saratov. German intelligence independently identified the secret BW programme allegedly managed by Zlatogorov and Maslakovets. Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov presented documents on recent biological research projects at labs in Ukraine supported by U.S. funding at a briefing in Moscow on March 10, 2022. The allegations were quickly amplified by China, which supported the claims during the UN security council debate. Asked why she thought the Russian officials expected to get away with so inaccurately describing the contents of the documents they made public, Pettersson suggested that they might have guessed many Russians would not look too closely at the lists of bacterial strains used in the Ukrainian labs because they were all written in Latin. [15], In his history of the Soviet Union in the Second World War, Christopher Bellamy argues that if either side was going to break the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of gas and bacteriological warfare, then 1942 was the most likely year. Project Factor was the codename for the budget to develop microbial weapons with new properties of high virulence, improved stability, and new clinical syndromes. Two special ships and two aircraft were assigned to Khatanever for use in tests focused on the dissemination of tularaemia bacteria. We know pathogens dont respect borders, so helping to put out public health fires before they become too big is an advantage to all of us, she said. 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 . [27], In the 1990s, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, admitted to an offensive bio-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. Unfortunately, a bioweapon made using an artificial virus has recently become feasible, making the possibility of a zombie virus seem real. After seeing the results of international investigations into chemical weapons use in Syria, Russia introduced a resolution to the United Nations last month that would have undermined future independent . 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. An outbreak of weaponized smallpox occurred during testing in 1971. The event incited heated discussion. As for the year ahead, a Russian scientist will create a biological weapon that will turn people into zombies, DublinLive reported on Saturday, based on a prophecy warning of the "half-dead to . The development was conducted in Vector Institute under the leadership of Dr. Ustinov who was accidentally killed by the virus. A screenshot of a talk show on Russian state television in 2019. He also alleges that human experimentation occurred with typhus, glanders and melioidosis in the Solovetsky camp. ???????:#?????? His decree was, however, not obeyed. The US undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland affirmed those facts in a Senate foreign relations committee hearing this week, in which the Republican senator Marco Rubio asked directly if Ukraine had biological weapons. The NKVD now switched its focus to apprehending any personnel associated with Units 100 and 731 and began a process of filtration of the 560,000-760,000 Japanese prisoners of war. I hope that this is more of a disinformation talking point than an actual thing, Gronvall said. Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned that Russias claim could be a pretext for it launching its own biological weapons attack on Ukraine. Two times a day to wet clean the room. From this you conclude that in this room Ukrainian nationalists dismember people alive twice a day and sacrifice them to Cthulhu, and then cover up the traces. For starters, a Russian scientist will successfully develop a biological weapon in 2021, and create a virus that morphs humankind into zombies. Further attacks were initiated against the Soviet Union by Unit 100 in the summer of 1942, and at a later unspecified date, again by Unit 731. At considerable risk to their own safety, 10 Russian biologists, including researchers who remain in Russia, have publicly accused the Russian government of lying about having proof that biological weapons were being developed in Ukrainian labs funded by the United States. "Dead through spite, he will cause the others to shine." pic.twitter.com/LiFrprWAUt. Away from television screens, the unfounded Russian allegations were echoed by the Chinese foreign ministrys spokesman, Zhao Lijian, and amplified in a conspiratorial Infowars video that was viewed more than 650,000 times. [2], "Pokrov, Berdsk and Omutninsk all revealed evidence of biological activity since 1975, such as large-scale production in hardened facilities, aerosol test chambers, excessive containment levels for current activity and accommodation for weapons-filling lines."[4]. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya held up images of pregnant women injured by Russian shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, said that the documents made public by Giorgadze again raise questions about the U.S. militarys true aims and objectives in Georgia. The documents Giorgadze publicized were described as a bombshell on Russian state television, in a report that quoted a former Russian military biologist speculating that Georgians were being used as guinea pigs in biological weapons experiments. The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, delivered a lengthy account of the alleged biological weapons plot, and said the birds, bats and insects supposedly intended. And those who have read it will say: Well, yes, maybe there are no dangerous pathogens in these documents. FilippaLentzos, a biologist and a scholar at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studiesreported in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that year that she had been part of a group of international experts that visited the lab in Tbilisi. We dont have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. Ukraine does operate biological laboratories that receive US funding. Russia has claimed without any evidence that biological weapons are being developed in laboratories in Ukraine with support from the United States. A state lab in Russia's Siberia is beginning research into prehistoric viruses preserved in the remains of animals found in melting permafrost. Favorov recalled that there was pressure on Soviet scientists to look for potential military applications for their research. The UN security council met on Friday to discuss Moscows claims the US is funding military biological activities in Ukraine. The Council last discussed the issue of alleged biological materials in Ukraine in a meeting on 11 March.. United States-Ukraine agreement Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, told the Council that his delegation is in possession of new evidence of a United States-Ukrainian agreement to conduct biological weapons research on Ukrainian territory, dating back as far as 2005. Now, the Biden White House has taken the extraordinary step of calling out both countries on their coordinated propaganda campaign and saying they might be providing cover for a potential . The accidental release of anthrax in 1979 from a Soviet military research facility in Yekaterinburg, which was known as Sverdlovsk in Soviet times, killed at least 66 people. Speaking at a press briefing in Moscow, Kirillov claimed that a shipment of chemical . It says material is being destroyed to conceal . 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.. How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? Carlsons claims about what Nuland said were quickly translated into Russian by the state broadcaster in Moscow and shared on Twitter by Russian diplomats. Making their first appearance during the Cold War, survivalists truly believed in an inevitable apocalypse caused by a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union and attempted to prepare retreats that would enable them to survive the blasts from nuclear bombs. Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images. So what is the dispute all about, and what is actually happening inside Ukraine? Russia's claims about secret American biological warfare labs in Ukraine are taking root in the United States too, uniting COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, QAnon adherents and some . Biopreparat pursued offensive research, development, and production of biological agents under the guise of legitimate civil biotechnology research. [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. On the 9 August 1945, the Soviet Union launched its invasion of Japanese-controlled Manchuria. 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. From the 1970s, it focused on molecular biology and the development of genetically modified organisms. 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. The nerve agent is classified as a chemical weapon, not a biological weapon, by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. [15], In the Far East the Soviet Union had been subject of a BW attack in 1939 during the battles of Khalkin Gol (Nomonhan) by Japan's Unit 731 under Shir Ishii. Moments later, Nebenzya did something of an accidental homage to Powell, by holding up images of pregnant women who were injured in the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol by Russian forces and repeating the thoroughly debunked claim that the photographs had been staged. For the past six years, the BNITM has instead been working with public health officials in Ukraine to investigate seroprevalence, the existence of antibodies, on various infectious diseases occurring in this region. The threat of chemical and nuclear warfare loomed large over most militaries during the Cold War. 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. The goal of this and other Pentagon-funded biological studies in Ukraine was the creation of a mechanism for the covert spread of deadly pathogens., On March 10, Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed, falsely, that documents seized in Ukraine indicated that U.S. and Ukrainian researchers were plotting to use birds to covertly send deadly pathogens to Russia pic.twitter.com/83nNA897kc. WASHINGTON White House officials have dismissed Russian allegations, recently leveled again by a top Kremlin general, that the United States developed biological weapons in Ukraine,. The U.S. is planning a provocation in Ukraine by using banned toxic chemicals and blaming it on Moscow, Russian Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, said on Tuesday. This particular flu virus belongs to a strain called H5N1. We know that because WHO is urging Ukraine to destroy any highly dangerous agents to avoid the risk of a disastrous outbreak should one of the labs be hit by Russian forces. Lewitin offered a more detailed debunking of the evidence in an interview with Marina Aronova, a correspondent for Siberia.Realities, a regional news outlet of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. government. Western officials and open-source researchers offered convincing evidence that both attempted murders were carried out by Russian intelligence agents. Russian officials accused the U.S. of funding biowarfare efforts in Ukraine, drawing concern from Western officials who fear that a crescendo of allegations about weapons of mass destruction. "Few young people: half-dead to give a start," Nostradamus mentioned in his writing. Earlier in March, the Russian ministry of foreign affairs posted a tweet accusing the US and Ukraine of running a secret military-biological programme inside the stricken country. During the period 1947-1949 a new military biological weapons facility, the USSR Ministry of Defence's Scientific-Research Institute of Hygiene, was established in Sverdlovsk, It occupied the site of the former Cherkassk-Sverdlovsk Infantry Academy on Ulitsa Zvezdnaya, 1. 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. Counter-proliferation efforts of the Nunn-Lugar Biological Threat Reduction program successfully averted technology transfer to authoritarian neighbors such as Iran during the decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These are invitations to workshops and accompanying material, lists of instructions on biosafety, lists of completely innocent strains [of pathogens], many of them received from Russian collections., As for the stuff on avian and bat migration investigations, routine research on strains of flu and other viruses in the wild population that could jump to humans, Lewitin told me he couldnt comprehend it any other way than as a complete delirium., A parallel effort to evaluate the first set of documents presented as proof of biological weapons research at the labs in Kharkiv and Poltava was conducted by a group of nine Russian-speaking biologists based in Russia, Belarus, Sweden, and France that was published on Twitter in Russian by Olga V. Pettersson, an ex-pat Soviet expert in genome sequencing. 2. Another innovation was the "mobilization production facilities"ostensibly civil manufacturing plantswhich incorporated capacity for production of weapons in wartime emergency." RUSSIA could unleash a bioweapon on Ukraine more lethal than Covid from a Ukrainian lab, the former head of the British Army's chemical weapons unit has warned. [15], On the 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometre front. [12] The development of genetically altered strains of smallpox was presumably conducted in the Institute under the leadership of Dr. Sergei Netyosov in the mid-1990s, according to Kenneth Alibek. It asserted that "the bacterial option could be successfully used in war" and proposed a plan for the organisation of Soviet military bacteriology. Those records were obtained and made public by a former head of Georgian intelligence living in exile in Russia, Igor Giorgadze. On Monday, Biden said Russia was "also suggesting that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine That's a clear sign he is considering using both of those. International restrictions on biological warfare began only with the June 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the use but not the possession or development of chemical and biological weapons. Russia called the meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council to reassert through its envoy Vassily Nebenzia, without providing evidence, that Ukraine ran biological weapons laboratories with U . Biodefense: Worldwide Threats and Countermeasure Efforts for the Department of Defense: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, Hearing Held October 11, 2013. p. 34. 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. While the unfunded CDC proposal to monitor diseases in bats in Ukraine and Georgia obtained by the Russian military mentioned surveillance of diseases, including coronaviruses, the idea that any viral strains obtained by the researchers would be manipulated in gain-of-function research was wholly invented by the Russian military, Carlson, and Gabbard. ?? Running parallel to the work underway at Vlasikha, BW research was also being pursued in an institution controlled by the state security apparatus. At that time about 100 people died from infected beef. 12 Mar 2022. Correction: March 21, 2022 House. Conclusion. "And the world sees it." At a meeting in September of the 197 state parties to the biological weapons convention, she said, "Russia failed to provide any credible evidence to support these false allegations" and an overwhelming number of countries that spoke "considered that the issues raised by . Aralsk-7 was part of a. [1][2], During World War II, Joseph Stalin was forced to move his biological warfare (BW) operations out of the way of advancing German forces and may have used tularemia against German troops in 1942 near Stalingrad. The safe and effective drug was being administered to Georgians for free as part of an effort to eliminate hepatitis C from Georgia,and the project was overseen by the CDC with donated drugs from Gilead. The drug had already been approved by the FDA in 2013. The outlet interprets Nostradamus' writing as: "A Russian scientist will create a biological weapon and produce a virus that can turn humankind into zombies, and we will all be extinct in the near future." "Sad concepts will come to harm each one, Temporal dignified, the Mass to succeed," Nostradamus wrote. According to Alibek, in 1928, the Revolutionary Military Council signed a decree about the weaponization of typhus. After the Soviet Union was dissolved, Favorov said, most of the former Soviet states outside Russia were in dire need of better laboratories to perform modern disease surveillance and research, and to safely store strains of deadly endemic diseases known as special pathogens that they needed to study and describe to protect their populations from outbreaks. Tens of thousands of scientists, researchers, doctors, engineers, technicians, and . Cook, Michelle Stem and Amy F. Woolf (April 10, 2002). The latest claims come just hours . The convention was backed by Richard Nixon, who in 1969 also put a stop to the US developing its own offensive biological weapons. Nakamitsu pointed to the Biological Weapons Convention, which has prohibited the development and use of biological weapons since 1975. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. 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. Soviet officials, including Boris Yeltsin, lied about what caused the outbreak until 1992. Its origins remain obscure, but it's possible that the deadly cache was manufactured at Compound 19, a facility near the Russian city of Sverdlovsk, now Yekatarinburg. The assessment of the US state department is that Russia continues to maintain an offensive biological weapons programme in violation of the convention it signed. [32] Leitenberg and Zilinskas, in The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History (2012), state flatly that "In March 1992Yeltsin acknowledged the existence of an illegal bioweapons program in the former Soviet Union and ordered it to be dissolved. The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to terms ranging from two to twenty-five years in Soviet labour correction camps. ????? 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 Soon after the broadcast, the same documents were also presented to the Russian public on the big screen at a defense ministry briefing led by Konashenkov and Kirillov. Russian officials, and state-controlled Russian television, repeated the allegations again and again throughout 2018. According to fox13now, because one of the . The fact that the Pentagon has provided much of the funding for labs built by the United States in former Soviet states also fuels suspicion in Russia, and elsewhere. It continued to utilise the biological weapons test site on Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea. ????? ?????? Answer (1 of 10): Zombies are impossible. 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. Biden said those accusations were not merely false, but a sign that President Vladimir Putin. It has also shown a willingness to. 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. Nuland did not answer the question head on. The list contains only strains common to microbiological and even more so to epidemiological laboratories.. [7] The Soviet Union was one, when it deposited its ratification notice. [14], By 1939, with the USSR on a war footing, the Soviet leadership is reported to have believed that the "imperialistic and fascistic countries" had actively undertaken BW preparations and that the use of such weapons, in case of emergency, was a foregone conclusion. The U.N. Security Council met at Russia's request to discuss Russia's claim of U.S.-supported chemical and biological weapons labs in Ukraine. The scheme was originally known as Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) but is now more commonly referred to as biological engagement. The Zombie Threat Is Very Real!!! The UN high commissioner for disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, confirmed that the UN was not aware of any biological weapons programmes in Ukraine. His back is against the wall, said Biden, mentioning the false claims about US-funded biolabs in Ukraine. In that case too, documents supposedly proving the allegations were published in the state media records from the lab which showed that dozens of Georgians had died in 2015 while taking the American-made drug Sovaldi. ???????????? It is Russia that has active chemical and biological weapons programs and is in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention. Early programs at the military lab focused on Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularaemia). The Russian military, Lewitin told Aronova, had simply lied about what the Ukrainian documents meant. Russian bioweapons program from 1920s to 1990s, List of Soviet/Russian biological weapons institutions, programs and projects, Notable biological agent outbreaks and accidents, Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R., & Kuhn, J. "[30] Yeltsin promised to end the Russian bio-weapons program and to convert its facilities for benevolent scientific and medical purposes. The issue of compliance by Russia with the BWC has been of concern for many years". The Soviet Union conducted experimentations with the Marburg virus in aerosol form to transform it into a strategic-operational biological weapon. 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. Alibek maintains that "Soviet leaders from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev personally authorized prohibited development, testing, and production efforts [and] cites several Gorbachev decrees stepping up the pace of work within the biological weapons complex, and directing the creation of mobile production facilities so that inspectors could not uncover the program. ??????????? The virus can be isolated and produced as a biological weapon. What if strange outbreaks surrounding U.S.-funded biolabs are the result of these labs and the work that is taking place in them? Greene asked. This week, speaking to business leaders in Washington, Joe Biden warned that Vladimir Putin could use biological weapons. It has been successful in helping former Soviet and other countries fulfill public health obligations. (Most of that long thread was translated into English by Ilya Lozovsky, an editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. This week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria . Russia is seeking to unlock unknown prehistoric viruses up to 50,000-years-old by extracting biological material from carcasses of ancient animals frozen in permafrost. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Konashenkovadditionally stated as a matter of fact something for which none of the documents presented at the briefing backs up: that American-financed studies of bird, bat, and reptile pathogens planned for later this year would include experiments on the ability of the animals to be used to covertly transmit weaponized African swine fever and anthrax. Defecting Soviet bioweaponeers such as Vladimir Pasechnik and Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov confirmed that the program had been massive and still existed. Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, presentation of faulty intelligence on Iraqs suspected weapons of mass destruction. At some point around the 25 September, the facility was evacuated and the buildings partially destroyed. The aim of the project is and was to enable the country to do diagnoses on antibodies itself. The institute added that its project is part of the German governments effort to improve global biosecurity through the minimization of biological risks emanating from highly hazardous pathogens in 25 countries., Konashenkov, the defense ministry spokesperson, also claimed that the documents from Ukraine showed that certain experiments were carried out with samples of coronavirus in bats.