Biohazard

Appendix 2: Soviet Biological Warfare System

This is the first comprehensive overview of the Soviet biological weapons system. The description of the services and facilities run by Biopreparat; the Ministry of Heath; the Academy of Sciences; and the Ministries of Internal Affairs, Justice, and External Trade are complete. I know only indirectly of two to three additional facilities run by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Agriculture. I was never told of those run by the KGB. In instances in which I was uncertain as to the exact name of an institute, I have given only its location. None of this information has ever been made public before.

The central authority of the Soviet Communist system, comprising Party representatives elected from around the country. Party leaders sat on the Politburo, the Party's governing body. The general secretary of the Party was chairman of the Politburo and effectively leader of the country. One member of the Politburo was assigned responsibility for all military and defense industry issues, including biological warfare.

The Central Committee Secretariat acted as the Party's administrative apparatus. The secretariat's Defense Department was in charge of biological warfare as well as other military and defense-related matters. The Committee of State Security (KGB) was the Party's intelligence and security organ. Its chairman sat on the Politburo.

The highest body of the Soviet government, consisting of the prime minister (the de jure head of government) and all government ministers. Ministers derived their real authority in the system from their positions in the Party. The most powerful ministers, including the prime minister, had seats on the Politburo and were thus subordinate to the Party organs and to the general secretary.

Gosplan, the state economic planning agency, was attached to the Council of Ministers and authorized budget expenditures for all government departments and activities, including Defense (but it had no authority over Party spending). Gosplan's Biological and Chemical Weapons Department supplied funding to all biological weapons (BW) facilities. The State Technical Commission, based in Moscow, developed and supervised electronic surveillance and electronic counterespionage measures at all biological weapons facilities.

Ministers responsible for defense-related industries sat on the Military-Industrial Commission, which ran the Soviet Union's military-industrial complex. The chairman was a deputy prime minister, but the commission's activities were ultimately responsible to the Politburo member in charge of military matters. The Military-Industrial Commission was divided into directorates responsible for different military sectors. The Biological Weapons Directorate coordinated the development and production of biological weapons.

The General Staff Operations Directorate of the Ministry of Defense was the chief war-fighting organ. The Special Biological Group, attached to this directorate, was responsible for the development of biological war-fighting doctrine and logistics. The Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) was responsible for military espionage and counterespionage. GRU agents conducted covert operations abroad to monitor foreign biological weapons programs and acquire strains of pathogens and documentation that might be useful for the USSR's biological weapons program. Biological weapons procurement (including testing, approval of weapons for the Soviet arsenal, and annual quotas for biological weapons stockpiles) was supervised by the Special Armaments Group, a unit administered by the deputy minister of defense for armaments.

The Fifteenth Directorate of the Soviet army developed and produced biological weapons. It commanded specific military units — some of brigade size — assigned to testing grounds and to provide security for military biological weapons facilities. In the event of war, biological weapons deployment would be the responsibility of military units of the Strategic Rocket Forces and Air Force. Between 1945 and 1973, the Fifteenth Directorate was the leading Soviet agency for biological weapons research. Although its research and planning role was eclipsed by the creation of Biopreparat, it continued to control biological weapons stockpiles and the primary facilities for biological weapons production. The following facilities were under its control.

Zima, Irkutsk region, Railway Station Zima. Storage, anthrax weapons.

Kirov, Institute of Microbiology. Developed BW weapons: typhus, Q fever, tularemia, brucellosis, glanders, anthrax, and melioidosis. Studied toxin weapons. Researched genetically altered bacterial strains. Produced and stockpiled plague.

Moscow region, Kubinka Military Airport. Home base for Air Force unit that delivered cargo, personnel, and animals to testing grounds.

Moscow, Institute of Safety Techniques. Developed BW production equipment.

Nukus, Kara Kalpak Autonomous Republic. Testing ground for BW and chemical warfare simulants.

Reutov, Moscow region. Storage: BW warheads, bombs, and bomblets.

Shikhany, Volga River region. Testing ground for chemical weapons and BW simulants.

Strizhi, Kirov region. Manufactured viral and bacterial BW. Built in the late 1980s, it was the last plant created by the Fifteenth Directorate before the collapse of the USSR.

Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Institute of Military Technical Problems. Developed BW: anthrax, tularemia, glanders, melioidosis. Researched toxic weapons, including botulinum toxin. Researched antibiotic-resistant anthrax and multidrug-resistant glanders. Produced anthrax, glanders. Stockpiled anthrax.

Volga River region, Air Force base (exact location unknown). Bomber base that may have been used as launchpad for aircraft disseminating BW during Afghan war.

Vozrazhdenie (Rebirth) Island, Kazakhstan. Testing grounds for BW. Command and control center located in nearby city of Aralsk.

Zagorsk (now Sergiyev Posad) Virology Institute. Researched and developed smallpox, monkey pox, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Argentinean hemorrhagic fever, Marburg, Ebola, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis. Researched Japanese encephalitis, tick-born encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis, Western equine encephalitis, Murray Valley encephalitis, Saint-Louis encephalitis, and others. Produced and stockpiled smallpox.

Created in 1973 to provide civilian cover for advanced military research into biological weapons, the agency was originally attached to the Council of Ministers. The majority of its personnel came from the army's Fifteenth Directorate, which kept it effectively under military control. A government reorganization in the mid-1980s transferred Biopreparat to the Ministry of Medical and Microbiological Industries, but it continued to enjoy virtually autonomous authority as the principal government agency for biological weapons research and development. Biopreparat was officially responsible for civilian facilities around the country dedicated to the research and development of vaccines, biopesticides, and some laboratory and hospital equipment; but many of its facilities doubled as BW development and production plants and were earmarked as "reserve" or mobilization units for use in case of war.

Berdsk, Technological Institute of Biologically Active Substances. Developed enzymes for research into genetically altered biological weapons.

Berdsk, Scientific and Production Base (Siberian Branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry). In operation from 1975 to 1981, it developed filling and assembling techniques for BW production, as well as lab techniques for production of brucellosis BW.

Berdsk, production plant. Mobilization (reserve) facility: plague, tularemia, glanders, and brucellosis. Target capacity up to 100 tons of each weapon annually.

Kirishi, Leningrad region, Special Design Bureau for Precision Machinery Building. Developed equipment for manufacturing and testing BW.

Koltsovo, Novosbirisk region, Institute of Molecular Biology "Vector." Researched and developed viral weapons: smallpox, Ebola, Marburg, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Russian spring-summer encephalitis. Studied numerous other viruses for possible BW use, including HIV. Developed genetically altered viruses for potential weapons use. Developed new production techniques for making smallpox and Marburg weapons. Researched genome of viruses in order to create "chimera" (combined) viral weapons.

Kurgan, Combine "Syntez." Mobilization (reserve) plant for manufacturing a liquid form of anthrax biological weapon. Assigned target capacity: 1,000 tons of unmodified anthrax weapons over one year.

Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Institute of Ultra-Pure Biopreparations. Researched and developed techniques for testing and application of BW. Studied application of BW to cruise missiles.

Lyubychany, Institute of Immunology. Researched biological agents used to suppress human immune system.

Moscow, Institute for Biological Instrument Design. Developed BW detection equipment, biosafety equipment, and biosafety procedures.

Moscow, Institute of Applied Biochemistry. Designed BW manufacturing and testing equipment. Developed standards for industrial-scale manufacturing of biological weapons.

Moscow, Design Institute "Giprobioprom." Designed BW research and production facilities.

Obolensk, Moscow region, Institute of Applied Microbiology. Researched and developed plague, tularemia, glanders, anthrax. Developed drug-resistant and vaccine-resistant weapons (Metol), and weapons targeted on central and peripheral neural systems (Bonfire).

Omutninsk, Scientific and Production base (formerly Eastern European Branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry). Researched and developed plague, tularemia.

Omutninsk, chemical production plant. Mobilization (reserve) facility for manufacturing plague, tularemia, glanders. Target capacity up to 100 tons of each weapon annually.

Penza, Combine "Biosyntez." Mobilization (reserve) plant for manufacturing dry form of anthrax BW. Assigned target capacity: 500 tons of unmodified anthrax weapon over one year.

Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan, Progress Scientific and Production Base (formerly Kazakhstan branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry). Mobilization (reserve) facility designated to produce 300 tons of modified form of anthrax BW over 250 days. Also designated for production of plague, glanders, and tularemia BW. Researched and developed anthrax and glanders. Tested anthrax, glanders, Marburg.

Vilnius, Lithuania, Institute of Immunology. Researched and developed enzymes for molecular biology and genetic engineering research. The research was subsequently used to develop genetically altered weapons at other facilities without the knowledge of institute officials.

Yoshkar-Ola, Mordovia Autonomous Republic, Special Design Bureau of Controlling Instrument and Automation. Designed and manufactured equipment and instrumentation for BW weapons development, testing.

Almaty, Kazakhstan, Production Facility "Biocombinat." Reserve mobilization plant for production of BW, primarily anthrax.

Golitsino, Scientific Institute of Phytopathology. Developed anticrop weapons, including agents for destruction of wheat, rye, corn, and rice.

Otar Railway Station, Kazakhstan, scientific institute and test site. Tested anticrop and antilivestock BW.

Pokrov, production plant. Mobilization facility for manufacture of smallpox (up to 100 tons) and Venezulelan equine encephalitis (40 to 80 tons), as well as other viral weapons. Reserve facility for antilivestock BW.

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Scientific Institute of Phytopathology. Researched and developed anticrop weapons.

Vladimir, research and development facility. Researched and developed antilivestock weapons: African swine fever, foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest, etc.

Several labs operating under the control of the Chemical Weapons Directorate were involved in biological weapons work, including the development of toxic organic substances. At least one lab was located in Moscow.

Second Main Directorate

Controlled about a dozen antiplague institutes and research facilities for work on microbiology and epidemiology scattered around the USSR. In addition to peaceful medical research, overseen by the Main Sanitary Epidemiological Directorate, which ran them, these facilities were responsible for investigating new strains of pathogenic microorganisms that could be used as biological weapons.

The institutes were located in Minsk (Belarus), Saratov, Irkutsk, Samara (formerly Kuybyshev), Rostov-on-Don, Almaty, and Volgograd, among others.

Third Main Directorate

Controlled a network of special hospitals and medical units to serve biological weapons research-and-development facilities. A second network investigated biological agents that could cause nonlethal and lethal organic and physiological changes (Program "Flute"). Several labs in this second network developed toxins and other substances for use against "individual human targets."

Moscow, Medstatistika. Gathered medical/BW intelligence from all over the world, mostly from open-source medical journals, but also analyzed information gathered covertly.

Moscow, Institute of Applied Molecular Biology (later Russian Scientific Center of Molecular Diagnostics and Treatment). Studied various biological substances in order to find those that could kill or cause irreversible mental damage.

Moscow, Institute of Immunology. Studied regulatory peptides with toxic properties capable of triggering both reversible and irreversible changes in the neural and immune systems.

Moscow, Scientific and Production Center of Medical Biotechnology. Basic research into human genome, in order to identify new BW possibilities.

Moscow Region, Center of Toxicology and Hygienic Regulation of Biopreparations. Studied toxic biological compounds with a high killing potential for aerosol use.

Sukhumi, Georgia. Breeding facility for monkeys used in BW testing.

The state scientific federation of the Soviet Union controlled funding and organized research in every major scientific discipline. Leading scientists accepted for membership earned the title of Academician (Akademik). The academy acted in an advisory capacity to the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee. The Interagency Scientific and Technical Council, formed in the early 1970s, coordinated advanced research in biological weaponry. The chairman was a government minister. Members included ranking representatives from the Central Committee, the Fifteenth Directorate, and Biopreparat; directors of leading scientific institutes; the vice president of the Academy of Sciences; the first deputy minister of health; the deputy minister of chemical industries; and the chief of the biological warfare directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture. The council acted as the principal scientific and industrial advisory body to the biological weapons system.

Moscow, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. Fundamental research into BW.

Moscow, Institute of Molecular Biology. Fundamental research into BW.

Moscow, Institute of Protein. Fundamental research..

Moscow, Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms. Fundamental research.

Vladivostock, Pacific Ocean Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. Fundamental research into marine toxic substances..

First Main Directorate

Responsible for foreign intelligence gathering, including the monitoring of foreign biological weapons programs. Conducted its own research into biological weapons, primarily for assassination purposes. Controlled several covert research units for chemical warfare and biological weapons, including Laboratory 12.

Third Main Directorate

Responsible for domestic counterintelligence and security. Regional branches provided security for individual Biopreparat facilities as well as camouflage and disinformation operations.

Moscow, Main Directorate of Labor-Correction Enterprises. Supervised prisons and concentration camps. Provided prison labor for the construction of BW facilities.

Moscow, Main Directorate of Internal Military Forces. Provided guards for BW facilities not controlled by the army's Fifteenth Directorate.

Responsible for Soviet foreign trade. Special departments arranged covert purchases of equipment and animals used in biological weapons program. Representatives and agents were posted abroad.

A special department at the Ministry of Justice was responsible for legal services for biological weapons facilities and personnel. It included special prosecutors, lawyers, judges, and special courts.