State Secrets: An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

Despite all the obstructions, my lawyer Aleksander Asnis followed his clearly outlined plan. This included an attempt to have the sub-legal acts and secret lists of secrets acknowledged as null and void. We were playing to gain time, and could benefit only from dragging the investigation procedure out as long as possible. It was very tough for me, but the main point was that I was free and could endure those hardships.

Nonetheless, it soon began to get on my nerves. The investigator just ignored all of our petitions aimed at a full and objective investigation of the case.

At first, the prospects for the plan we had outlined seemed pretty good. Asnis was negotiating with the RF Supreme Soviet, with the heads of the Committee on Human Rights and the Committee on Legislative Matters. According to procedure, if two committees make a similar decision on a particular problem, it practically becomes the decision of the Supreme Soviet. The Committee for Human Rights had made the decision that the resolution passed by the U.S.S.R. Committee on Constitutional Supervision, which invalidated unpublished sub-legal acts, was lawful. My lawyer also had an agreement with the deputy head of the Committee for Legislative Matters about a similar decision; however, Professor Mintyukov, the chairman of that committee, returned from his vacation and didn’t agree to make such a decision. His primary concern was that such a decision might create problems for his career.

According to our plan for the defense, at an interrogation on December 1, 1992, which lasted for only 25 minutes, I repeated my previous position that I couldn’t name my candidates for the expert commission until I was shown the lists of secrets. I informed the investigator that I would again appeal his refusal to show me these normative acts.

Apparently, Shkarin realized that he wouldn’t receive any new information from me. So he didn’t summon me for interrogation for almost a month and a half, and refocused all his efforts on trying to get “damning evidence” from other people, and on trying to have his version confirmed by the expert commission.

On November 24, 1992 Captain Shkarin called in Dr. Natalya Godzhello for an interrogation. The results of this interrogation were disappointing for the interrogator. Natalya stated “…I think that Mirzayanov didn’t disclose any state secrets in publishing information about the creation of a new chemical agent and the development and testing of binary weapons, because he didn’t indicate either the class of the compound or its chemical formula, the method of its synthesis, or the technology and equipment used for its synthesis, or the initial precursors from which it is produced. In my opinion, specific concrete information constitutes a state secret, the disclosure of which could allow another state to create the same compound. I think that Mirzayanov published this article, guided by the best intentions, in order to rule out the possibility of an arms race in the area of chemical weapons.”[147]

The interrogation of my former deputy, Svyatoslav Sokolov, also proved to be disappointing for Investigator Shkarin. He only stated that “…We took samples of water, air, and solid waste for research both on the institute grounds and at the Volgograd PO Khimprom, where compounds developed at the institute were produced. Mirzayanov personally went to Volgograd to introduce his techniques, which was why he knew the place of the production of chemical agents very well…”[148]

Even during the investigation with the trial pending, I wasn’t going to put an end to my activities directed against chemical weapons. At my request Andrei Zheleznyakov gave an interview to the magazine Novoe Vremya.[149] I also gave an interview to this magazine about the danger of testing chemical weapons on the open test site, because the remnants of chemical agents adsorb to dust particles which travel great distances, and can damage people’s health.[150]

On January 12, 1993, Shkarin summoned me to his office once more. As I expected, he showed Asnis and me a bundle of resolutions-refusals to all our petitions. They were written pro forma and openly demonstrated arrogance and contempt for my lawyer and me. On the surface, everything was done correctly: I participated in the interrogations, wrote numerous petitions, and signed the transcripts. This created the impression that the investigation was proceeding along an entirely legal course. That was the goal of the investigator. He wanted to sculpt the indictment quietly and calmly. Of course, that didn’t suit me. I warned Asnis before the interrogation began that if the investigator once more showed me piles of refusals to our petitions, then I would stop testifying and signing the interrogation transcripts. My lawyer said that it might make our defense more difficult, but he respected any of my decisions, and therefore he didn’t object.

When we came for an interrogation on January 12, 1993, and the investigator, as expected, showed us refusals to all our petitions, I wrote an appeal in which I protested against the arbitrary investigation that systematically violated my rights to a defense. Then I refused to participate in the interrogations. I also pledged to respond appropriately to all summons by the Lefortovo Investigation Department.

The investigator tested me by asking me a question about some papers that had been confiscated during the search in my apartment. Of course, I didn’t answer and he recorded this formally in the transcript.

The same scene played out again on January 13th and 14th. In this way Shkarin probably goaded me on to use stronger forms of protest. If I refused to come to the Investigation Department for the interrogation, he would arrest me with pleasure and would continue fabricating my case, without any fear that the public might find out about his actions. I decided not to play into the hands of the sneaky captain.

Under the circumstances, the investigation worked solely with my lawyer. Shkarin showed us an enactment about the appointment of the expertise. Since the General Staff Headquarters of the Armed Forces refused to take charge of the expertise, Shkarin added new people to the expert commission and decided it would have to work at Lefortovo. The details of the problem of the investigation were well laid out in Izvestia.[151]

After a long ordeal, the investigator complied with one of our requests and seated the two people we had suggested as members of the commission. The first was Reserve Major General Vadim Smirnitsky, former Commander of Military Unit 64518. He was the head of a special subdivision at the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Defense, which dealt with questions of special weapons. Also they seated Reserve Colonel Nikolai Chugunov, who had a master’s degree in science, and was the chief specialist for special weapons at the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Defense. He had been an advisor to the Soviet delegation at the Soviet-American negotiations leading to the CWC.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know these people, though I had heard about them when I was working at GOSNIIOKhT. Still, I completely trusted my lawyer’s judgment and didn’t doubt that Smirnitsky and Chugunov would be decent and honest experts.

The results of their work showed that these two people entirely justified our hopes and thoroughly shattered the “findings” of the expert commission prepared by the investigator. I met with General Smirnitsky and Lieutenant Colonel Chugunov for the first time at the judicial proceedings. They both impressed me deeply with their professionalism and logical testimony, which was notably different in nature from the statements of other members of the expert commission.

A Person from Volsk and Petrenko’s Patriotic Impulse

The legal battles in the investigator’s office in Lefortovo coincided with the signing in Paris of the Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWC) in January of 1993. At that time I harshly objected to the signing of this convention, because I saw its flaws, which the opponents to chemical disarmament could use to their advantage. First of all, I couldn’t catch the logic behind the usage of a very unclear term in the convention “prohibiting the development of chemical weapons,” while allowing scientific research work in this field was, at the same time. All my attempts to receive a comprehensible answer, about where the clear distinction between these two notions lay, were fruitless. Moreover, at the level of scientific development at the time, there was absolutely no necessity for the technologically dangerous production of chemical agents. These days and even then, chemical weapons could exist primarily in a binary form, with non-toxic binary components. There was no need to carry out the dangerous and expensive testing of binary weapons. All this could be done in a laboratory, where practically any kind climatic conditions can easily be modeled.

The text of the convention had obvious loopholes that dishonest generals could exploit for their own selfish ends. I gave numerous interviews to the press, on the radio, and on television trying to explain these dirty tricks which were embedded in the convention. Almost no one tried to refute my arguments. The Russian authorities and specialists on chemical weapons kept their dead silence and didn’t comment on my statements. I received no answer from foreign specialists, either.

Still I continued to explain that such a convention was far from the best instrument for struggling against chemical weapons. This is why I harshly criticized the convention in my speeches on French TV, on radio station “Echo Moskva,” and others, and spoke against its signing. Soon I realized I was no longer alone. Suddenly I found an unexpected ally, a senior engineer at the Volsk branch of GOSNIIOKhT, Vladimir Uglev, who was also a deputy of the Volsk City Council at that time. He was responsible for the ecological issues on this city council and spoke out against the activities of military chemists, who frequently exploded chemical shells at the military testing site, posing a threat to the safety and health of the local population.[152] Also, it turned out that he had worked for a long time with Petr Kirpichev, the creator of chemical agents A-230 and A-232.

When we first met at the beginning of January 1993, Vladimir made a good impression on me, with his determination to struggle against chemical weapons and against the barbaric destruction of the stockpiles at the Shikhany military test site.

Several of his remarks about new developments made it clear that he was a highly qualified specialist who understood the questions of the synthesis and testing of new chemical agents very well. He was well informed about the events that unfolded around the invention of Agent A-232 and how former director of GOSNIIOKhT, Ivan Martynov, was giving the patent authorship for Substance A-232 to his son Boris.

I was very pleased that Uglev was ready to support me. It was extremely important at that time, because there were few people either in our country or in the U.S., who believed in the existence of a secret program for the development and testing of a new generation of chemical weapons. However, along with such positive impressions, I also heard something that was for me an alarming confession. Vladimir told me that some time ago he had been recruited by the KGB to spy on Petr Kirpichev, who was his scientific supervisor. According to his story, he had told Kirpichev everything, and justified his decision to become an informer because he believed that otherwise some other unknown person would have been in his place. Oh, blessed naiveté! You see the KGB made sure its informants had understudies, to exclude the possibility of a “monopolization” of information sources. However, I can’t strictly judge those who agreed to be informers, because the KGB was truly omnipotent. Reporting was rampant and very few could resist the suggestion to “become useful to the Motherland.” Suspicion practically paralyzed any communications and any discussions, including scientific ones. I tried to avoid suspicions as much as possible, even if I didn’t know people well, but sometimes it seemed to me that there were always at least a few informers among the people who surrounded me. Sometimes I got irrefutable evidence confirming my intuitive guesses, but I always pressed myself not to be tempted to retaliate. Unfortunately, I didn’t always succeed and that resulted in conflicts.

I asked Uglev to be extremely careful in his dealings with Lev Fedorov. As I understood, Fedorov’s major objective in his relations with Uglev and me was to obtain any kind of information, which he would later use for writing his articles, and for passing himself off as a prominent specialist in chemical weapons. It was more than a provocation at that time, when my lawyer and I were trying with all our might to prove that I hadn’t disclosed any state secrets connected with the technical side of the problems of chemical weapons.

A vivid illustration of this is Fedorov’s article in which he deliberately and nonchalantly described the formula of Substance 33 and the principle of binary weapons based on it, passing himself off as an outstanding specialist in the sphere of chemical weapons.[153]

Of course it was no big secret to the FSB (the KGB), where this information was really coming from. Uglev was soon under the threat of being charged with disclosing state secrets, and the Saratov department of the FSB started an investigation. Before that Vladimir Uglev gave a sensational interview to Novoe Vremya. In this interview, he confirmed my account about the toxicity of the new chemical agents and spoke about the history of their development at the Volsk branch of GOSNIIOKhT. He said that precursors of these agents were not included on the lists of substances controlled under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Moreover, he claimed that a batch of the components of binary weapons was stockpiled at a secret base in the Bryansk Region. Uglev shared my apprehensions that the components of binary weapons, based on the new agent, could be disguised as civilian products, which would make international control much more difficult.[154]

I don’t doubt a bit that Uglev’s position was sincere. He always adhered to it when he gave interviews to the press. It was extremely important to me that one more person from the military-chemical complex was earnestly struggling against chemical weapons and wasn’t afraid of persecution.

We developed rather good relations and met from time to time when he came to Moscow. During these meetings, which took place in my apartment, we openly discussed the problems connected with the prohibition of the development and production of chemical weapons and the destruction of their stockpiles. I was certain that the KGB recorded our conversations because I knew its surveillance techniques. However, this didn’t worry me because we didn’t discuss any technical secrets.

Vladimir was a courageous person, and he didn’t hesitate in the face of impending danger. He was driven by his adamant belief that it was necessary to take such actions for the good of the people.

In the middle of January 1993, a hearing was held at the RF Supreme Soviet on the problem of destroying the stockpiles of chemical weapons. It took place in the While House on the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment, which less than a year later would be shot up by tanks, driving out coup supporters headed up by adventurous Russian Vice President Aleksander Rutskoi, and the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet and specialist in Marxist political economy, Ruslan Khasbulatov.

I went to this hearing at the invitation of Valeri Menshikov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Ecology, with whom I had established good relations. There I met many active participants in the ecological movement who were worried that chemical weapons would be destroyed without the necessary safety precautions.

Vladimir Petrenko stood out among this group because of his picturesque beard. It turned out that he had served in Military Unit 61469 in Shikhany. There the young officer, along with others, was recruited as a guinea pig for the testing of chemical weapons. These experiments were very cheap for the military unit. The officers participating in the experiment each received an insignificant bonus. However, Petrenko almost totally lost his health due to his patriotic impulse, so he was transferred to the reserve. His attempts to receive some kind of compensation resulted in his being charged with slandering the chiefs of the military unit. For a long time he couldn’t even receive his small disability allowance. Attempts to address the public were even more costly. His wife was fired from her job at the same military unit, and they started to evict the Petrenko family from their apartment in Shikhany. Later Petrenko’s “case” became widely known,[155] and he devoted the rest of his life to struggling against the barbaric destruction of chemical weapons at the military test site.

All of the official speakers at the meeting appeared completely insipid and couldn’t bring any arguments in support of their projects, other than promising “we will do it.” Critical statements by activists from the ecological movement, who arrived from the regions where chemical weapons were stockpiled, added fuel to the fire. They were talking about inadequate storage conditions and barbaric methods of destruction that threatened the safety and health of the surrounding populations.

For example, activists from Novocheboksarsk criticized the military-chemical complex’s project for destroying stockpiles of chemical weapons at the chemical plant that used to produce chemical agents. The plant’s proximity to the city’s densely populated districts was already the reason for the deterioration of the health of the local people, and the generals wanted to keep poisoning people, while destroying the stores of chemical weapons. Even from a purely psychological standpoint, people didn’t want to hear that chemical weapons would be destroyed near their homes. However, this never occurred to the functionaries from the Committee for Conventional Problems.

Despite the ongoing investigation and endless interrogations, I tried to participate in various public events as much as possible. In particular, I went to the conference “The KGB Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow” organized by Sergei Grigoriyants. The conference participants, including many former dissidents who had endured all the horrors of the Soviet concentration camps, greeted me warmly, saying that they supported me in my struggle against the KGB. Of course I was very glad that these people considered me an insider.

How the Tatars Became the “Enemies of Democracy”

In 1992 a ruthless and bitter campaign unfolded in the Russian press and television against the Republic of Tatarstan, when it announced its intention of conducting a referendum on the independence of the republic. At this time the Tatar Nation saw the prospect of freedom somewhere on the horizon for the first time in many centuries of slavery. Many representatives of our nation were optimistic about it, but by the end of the 20^th century, the Tatar Nation found itself in a very thorny situation. Lenin’s national policy wasn’t the only reason for the degradation of my people as these “democrats” were saying. They claimed that 70 years of the sins of Communism were to blame for everything. Mostly the problems of the Tatar Nation were the result of imperial policy aimed at forced Russification of their colonies and the ruthless plunder of the Tatar national resources – namely oil.

Oddly enough, the U.S.S.R. Communist leaders managed to use the UN to protect the integrity of their colonial empire, while they were demagogically struggling to deprive their Western partners (England, France, Belgium, etc.) of their own colonies. A certain peculiar but interesting thesis was invented and circulated stating that colonies were only those (conquered) territories that were located across the ocean. When even the “Slavic brothers” (Belarus, Ukraine) bordering on the Motherland managed to escape from it, the partial break-up in 1991 of the Russian Empire (called the U.S.S.R.) ended all the demagogic arguments in the international arena overnight. However, this collapse didn’t solve the major problem of Russia – the decolonization of the colonies that in their time weren’t able to receive the official status of “union republics.” I should note that the absence of this legal status – and the preservation of the colonial regime – doesn’t make any more legal sense than it makes sense to think that colonies are only to be found across the ocean. The US Congress approved Public Law 86-90 “Captive Nations Week” on July 17, 1959, which pointed out that among the captured nations of Russia were the people of Idel-Ural who are mostly Tatars and Bashkirs. The awakening of the Tatar national identity after the collapse of the totalitarian regime pushed the Tatars to struggle for basic freedom, which mainly came down to the right to decide independently how they should live in their own republic.

Some leaders from the All-Tatar Public Center supported full independence for Tatarstan, up to its full separation from Russia. However, the geopolitical situation of Tatarstan, which is surrounded by regions mostly inhabited by Russians, didn’t leave room for any illusions. At the same time, the status of independence could become the basis for building new relations with Russia, to try along with other newly liberated nations of the former empire, to find a fundamental solution to the problem of economic and political integrity of the country, based on a federation or confederation built from the bottom-up.

In my opinion the referendum about independence was largely symbolic, but it was an extremely important step towards real independence. I know for a fact that no one in Tatarstan thought about organizing any military groups to try to solve the problem by force. However, such a ruckus broke out in the press on this account! All the newspapers, both democratic and pro-Communist, were stirring up supercharged anti-Tatar hysteria. I couldn’t get rid of the impression that all these actions were well coordinated, especially considering who controlled the so-called free press in Russia. My friends, who were quite well educated and democratically minded people, were surprised at the “impertinence” and “black ingratitude” of the Tatars.

It took a lot of effort to explain the simple truth to these people. Nevertheless, the referendum took place, and its results caused jubilation among the Tatar people. But, everything ended at that.

Although, later the governments of Tatarstan and Russia conducted negotiations on concluding some kind of agreement, it couldn’t change anything, except one thing. Before that Tatarstan was the only single colony conquered by the Russians which didn’t have a formal agreement confirming that it had voluntarily joined the Russian Empire. Probably even the Tsarist high officials found it extremely hypocritical to pretend that Tatarstan voluntarily joined the empire like the other colonies. The collective psychic wound inflicted on the Tatars by the massive slaughter of mostly innocent women and children after the siege of Kazan in 1552, was carried out by Russian troops led by Ivan the Terrible, and it remains unhealed to this day.

After negotiations in Moscow between the administrations of the presidents of the Russian Federation and Tatarstan, a non-binding agreement was signed about mutual relations that served as a pressure valve, that is, for comforting the Tatar people and for keeping the colonial status of Tatarstan.

In March of 1993, at the invitation of the All-Tatar Public Center, I participated in the congress of this organization. To do so I had to write an appeal to my investigator asking for permission to go to Kazan, because I was still under a written court order not to leave Moscow. Shkarin was happy about this turn of events, because after I had refused to take part in the investigation, I had completely ignored him and refused to sign any papers.

Unfortunately, I soon found out that many people in Kazan were still strongly under the influence of their Communist leaders, who had only one enemy – President Boris Yeltsin, who they felt had to be defeated at any cost. Early in 1991, it was Yeltsin who had offered the Tatars as much independence “as they could swallow”. I am certain that as a natural politician, Boris Yeltsin knew that the Russian Empire was an unstable form of governing colonies, and that it had become obsolete, both economically and politically. So a new federal system was necessary that would take into consideration the colonized peoples’ hunger for independence. It’s not surprising that after such a suggestion, President Mintimer Shaimiev[156]^, [157]^, [158] of Tatarstan, viceroy of the Russian Empire, and the former First Secretary of the Regional Committee of the C.P.S.U., zealously participated in the Bolshevik coup in August of 1991. The Tatar people, led by their usual short-sighted and naive activists-idealists, saved the unlucky coup supporter from becoming a cellmate of Vladimir Kryuchkov (chief of the KGB), the U.S.S.R. Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, and others in the infamous Matrosskaya Tishina Prison.

What elements of freedom offered by Boris Yeltsin did the ruling elite in Kazan make use of? Perhaps it was only the “market” possibility – to use the wealth and resources of the Republic of Tatarstan without any control and to secure permanent places at the top for themselves, trampling on what remained of the system of democratic elections. As for the rest, they didn’t even bother to change the names of the streets and the cities which still bear the names of the Bolshevik butchers. Lenin’s beloved bronze scarecrow is still displayed in the center of Kazan. It was Mr. Shaimiev, President of Tatarstan, who instructed the people’s deputies from Tatarstan like Renat Mukhamadiev to form a bloc in the Supreme Soviet of Russia with extremists like Vladimir Rutskoi, Ruslan Khasbulatov, and Sergei Baburin, inveterate enemies of the democratic development in Russia. In my speech I reminded my audience about this fact, and my appeal to the congress was welcomed with long applause.

After that, I had to calm down a nervous BBC correspondent for a long time, who was asking if I wasn’t afraid that Tatar nationalists and separatists would use my authority for bad purposes. I replied that I know my people very well. Tatars distinguish themselves as hard working people. No matter where they settle, they start by building a house and a banya (bath house), but they never buy weapons, even if someone threatens their lives. However, this doesn’t mean that Tatars are cowardly. Tatars are among the first of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., who hold the greatest number of the highest award for heroism in the Second World War – the title of “Hero of the Soviet Union”. I also said I was certain that after the Tatar people became truly independent, they would live in real friendship with the Russian people.

Less than two years later, a new Russian-Chechen war broke out.

I deeply condemn any war, since I think that no wars are waged to achieve noble goals – not liberation wars, and not wars waged to bring “civilization” to people. I am against solving any problems with the help of military force, no matter whose initiative it is, because in the end innocent people die, although nobody ever asks for their opinions. For this reason, I can’t imagine, even theoretically, my people fighting the Russian people. Both peoples are still in a state of poverty and slavery, and they can’t be liberated from these problems on their own, because civilized peoples have left them far behind. Any possible conflict will only drag them backwards, which in turn will lead to their natural wasting away. Finally they will just disappear from the historical scene as has happened to many other nations…

However, when the Chechen Republic claimed independence, the behavior of the democratic public and press changed drastically! Long before the armed conflict, nobody ever thought to censure the separatist demarche of General D. Dudaev. Such “tolerance” by itself probably wasn’t that bad, because it said something about the maturation of the democratic outlook of our society. Now I am convinced that the statement of the Chechen leader was a concentrated expression of protest of a colonial people of the Russian Empire against keeping their colonial status at the end of the 20^th century, but it took on the form of extremism. However, nobody in the press or in the Supreme Soviet thought to speak out against the colonial nature of Russia, nobody supported its quick decolonization, and nobody suggested that negotiations with all the colonies should be started.

Then almost everybody started struggling against the Russian-Chechen war, but on the side of Dudaev. There were even some “democrats” who were sitting in the besieged palace of the rebel general, when fire from there was killing young Russian soldiers. Everybody extracted political dividends from this struggle, even the Communists, many of whom had clearly Fascist views about the non-Russian population.

For some reason, I think that most of those who censure this senseless war of annihilation are sincere, but I can’t understand why people have a double standard regarding different peoples. It looks like the Tatar people are the enemy, even if they conduct a peaceful referendum. They asked “How did they dare to do this while they oppressed us for more than 400 years?” However, from the point of view of democrats, “our” nation, which irresponsible politicians have involved in armed escapades is right and should be defended.

I am greatly sorry, but there is nothing else I can do except contemplate the source of such a double standard. I suppose the phenomenon of a defective slave mentality that subconsciously sanctions the creation of a common enemy – the Tatar – is responsible. Another point is that the Russian Nation, which agreed to relinquish control over “Kiev Russia” in the form of Ukraine, doesn’t want to understand that Kazan, that is Tatarstan, has exactly the same rights to be the master in its own republic as the Russians do in Moscow. So far the concept of equality doesn’t go any further than allowing a Tatar surgeon to operate on the Russian president’s heart and to providing the Black Sea Fleet with oil. I don’t think it is just by chance that during the past 400 years not a single Tatar has ever been Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs or has held any other important position for Russia affairs. At the same time many Jews, Ukrainians, and representatives of other nations have held these positions. Doesn’t it mean that Russians do not have a more bitter enemy than the Tatar?

In this way, the colonial status of my people is as obvious today as it was yesterday. There is no hope of overcoming slavery until my people come to terms with their never-ending habit of leaving the successors of Sheikh-Gali,[159] a well known traitor to Tatar interests, at the helm of power, and gain control over the situation.

The Discovery of the Chekists

Meanwhile, Shkarin toiled away preparing to bring the indictment to its logical conclusion. The expert commission was working, and they found additional material at GOSNIIOKhT that allegedly proved my involvement with the development of binary weapons.[160]^, [161] Shkarin hurried over to GOSNIIOKhT to conduct the so-called personal inspection and wrote up a report with great satisfaction. He was certain that this time fortune had smiled upon him. He just forgot the saying that ultimately the person who is celebrating is somebody who has last word to say.

Of course GOSNIIOKhT immediately forwarded the document to the Chekists. However, the investigator handled these papers quite irresponsibly, because attaching this document to my case materials meant its complete declassification in the future. On the other hand, even in his wildest nightmare, Shkarin couldn’t imagine that I would dare to copy this top secret material along with other documents. It leaves no doubts regarding Gorbachev’s deceitful statements that the military presumably “were cleaning up unfinished business.”[162]

Shkarin painstakingly prepared for the interrogation. He planned to produce all documents that would prove that I was informed about the development of binary weapons. This is why he summoned me on March 25, 1993, for an interrogation and produced the “Technical Order.” At that point, I was still using the tactic of not participating in the interrogations, and I didn’t read the documents, but right away I understood everything. It was all true. There was my official stamp on the document. I remembered that the senior research assistant Savkin had brought it to me and asked me to put my stamp on it. I didn’t refuse, although I wasn’t allowed to be included in that work. In spite of all his efforts, Shkarin had failed to find a list of employees allowed to work on the topic of binary weapons that included my name. The lists existed, but my name wasn’t on a single one of them. So now the captain was satisfied to some extent, although he realized that there was very little information in this paper that could be used to formulate the conclusion that I had participated in this work.

Everything in the document was so vague that only a knowledgeable insider could understand what it meant. Not even the words “binary weapon” were on the paper, not to mention the components. Evidently another attempt to interrogate my former deputy, Svyatoslav Sokolov, didn’t help to prove my direct involvement in the development of binary weapons. This is why the investigator had to compose the transcript of his interrogation as if he were interested in how informed I was on the toxic properties of the compounds. This was just funny, because the investigator had more than enough information about what I knew regarding the properties of all old and new chemical agents. However, a Chekist wouldn’t be a Chekist if he didn’t try to take anybody who read this document for a fool…

The Expert Commission: Mirzayanov Told the Truth, Therefore he is Guilty

I was summoned for the next interrogation on April 12, 1993. A surprise was waiting there for my lawyer and me – the lists of secrets[163]^, [164] and the results[165] of the work of the expert commission. On that day I wasn’t ready to change my tactics for my behavior at the interrogations, which is evident from the following passage from the transcript of interrogation, which I also refused to sign. However, after that I changed my mind, following the advice of my lawyer Asnis, because we had already partially reached our objective. First, the expert commission was split in its decision, and the respectable and authoritative specialists, General Vadim V. Smirnitsky and Colonel Nikolai I. Chugunov, didn’t agree with the “opinion” of other members, which completely matched the resolution of the Permanent Technical Commission at GOSNIIOKhT,[166] with the exception that from it I disclosed “…the cooperation of designers and manufacturers…” naming test sites and locations of production of chemical weapons.

What is more, Asnis and I found another of their declarations most useful for my defense: “The commission has no information (documents) at its disposal at this time about any negative consequences that Mirzayanov’s actions caused.” In other words, the KGB’s vaunted experts stated that my ostensible crime was a victimless one. Also, the investigator finally produced all the lists of secrets that we had been requesting, for such a long time. Nonetheless, at a later date, in violation of all the norms of the Criminal and Procedural Code, Investigator Shkarin did not include these materials in my case (he included only extracts of them), and this is why I couldn’t copy them and make them public. However, I managed to copy some of the necessary excerpts regarding the essence of state secrets in the area of scientific research work on weapons. This is why during the next interrogation that took place on April 14, 1993, I worked very hard, reading everything attentively, and copied the parts I found most interesting. Upon the recommendation of my lawyer, I also wrote a petition in which I asked to submit a request for clarification of the terms used on the lists for interpreting chemical weapons. I remember that on all the lists of information that constitute state secrecy, there was not a single word about chemical weapons, or their development and testing. Instead of this the experts and the investigator used general terms such as “ammunition”. The situation was exactly the same with the notion of the “special purpose program” for the development of weapons, the information from which I had allegedly disclosed. For these reasons I insisted on my arguments at the interrogation on April 15, 1993. In particular, in answering the usual question of the investigator about what “explanations I could give regarding the materials that were shown to me”, I declared:

I should mention that beginning in January 1, 1993, the new List of Information of State Secrecy, which practically repeats the words of the old one, was introduced in Russia, and it also lacks any kind of wording about chemical weapons.

This conclusion came as no surprise to me, because the majority of the members of the expert commission were representatives of the military-chemical complex. These people were much more guided by their official responsibilities than by their feelings of civic duty. The fact that the experts Major General Vadim V. Smirnitsky (whose military rank was not listed in the document) and Colonel Nikolai I. Chugunov refused to sign this conclusion confirms this. Each of them wrote his own personal conclusion, in which each denied that I had disclosed any state secrets. Their conclusions could be summed up as follows from the resolution written by Nikolai Chugunov:[167]

General Smirnitsky stressed in his conclusions[168] that the information about the newly synthesized chemical agent didn’t disclose:

Victor Shkarin tried to lessen the significance of the conclusions written by the respectable veterans of the Chemical Troops, and he conducted additional interrogations[169]^, [170]^, [171] to “clarify” their positions, which were already quite obvious. They didn’t change their minds, which of course was a serious blow for the carefully concocted “findings” of the Investigation Department. During the interrogation on April 23, 1993 Nikolai Chugunov entirely destroyed one of the main accusatory tricks of Shkarin. When he asked Chugunov about my alleged disclosure of the results of the “goal-oriented program” he said, “It’s difficult for me to answer the question as to whether Mirzayanov revealed the results of some kind of concrete program of scientific research work, because the materials presented to the Expertise don’t contain any information about a concrete program of scientific research and its elements”. Defiant Shkarin tried to save the situation by using the term “goal-oriented program” and immediately sent a letter to Director Petrunin[172] asking for clarification, but the director[173] was almost helpless to respond because there was no real goal-oriented program, except for the General Directives for the creation of a new chemical agent. I was certain that such a “special purpose program” for the development of chemical weapons had never existed and does not exist today. After this crash, Captain of Justice Shkarin simply erased all references to a “goal-oriented program” from all copies of the lists of state secrets quoted in the case and edited their items as if they never ever contained any of those words. He also deleted this from all the other documents and transcripts of interrogations attached to the case except for the letters.

Trying to repair the damage, Shkarin also interrogated the members of the expert commission Anatoly Kochetkov,[174] Boris Kuznetsov[175] and Igor Gabov.[176] The first two of them surprisingly “admitted” that Mirzayanov meant the new chemical agent A-232 in the article “A Poisoned Policy”. I had never used this codename in my publications and interviews, and I didn’t mention the term “Novichok” either. Before these experts testified, Andrei Zheleznyakov and Vladimir Uglev[177]^, [178] had publicly disclosed them. I didn’t understand why Shkarin created this perfidy, until the case went to trial.

There was already a greater blunder in the works, apart from the mistakes mentioned above regarding the arbitrary interpretation of the terms on the lists of secrets, where even the words “chemical weapons” weren’t to be found. We also insisted that if all lists of state secrets didn’t contain any definition of chemical weapons or chemical agents, then it would not be legal to apply them to my case. The definition “ammunitions” from any reasonable point of view cannot be applied to chemical weapons or chemical agents. Certainly the Investigation Department was in an awkward situation to argue with this logic. To try to save the situation, the Investigation Department of the MB RF sent a letter to General Staff Headquarters of Russia.[179] The answer was confusing,[180] though it slightly comforted the investigator. I consider it my duty to say that both the request and the answer are highly provocative.

Those who compiled the new list of secrets and those who interpreted it supposed that the development of chemical weapons would continue in the future. This is despite the fact that by September of 1992, when the new list of secrets was compiled and the term “chemical weapons” still wasn’t to be found there, the Chemical Weapons Convention had been initialed and Russia was one of the major participants of the negotiations. However, the signatories participating counted on secrecy and were certain that their secrets would never be made public.

The Russian Government Comes Running to the Aid of the KGB

Evidently, there was more than enough juridical “evidence” of my guilt, from the point of view of the investigation, to justify conducting closed legal proceedings.

On the other hand, the lists of secrets did not contain even an indirect reference to the development of chemical weapons, and it was impossible to ignore this deficit any further. General Balashov and his subordinates understood that if another specialist repeated my actions, they would have practically no legal basis for conducting a legitimate investigation. That is why General-Chekist Demin[181] initiated the urgent adoption of an amendment to the Temporary List of Secrets.[182] The new Russian definition included “information that discloses the content of former or current works in the area of chemical or biological weapons, or the essence of those works, the results achieved, as well as information on the protocols of synthesis, production technologies, or articles of production equipment.” On March 30, 1993, it was issued in the form of Resolution N 256-16, signed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.

This was already quite a different story. Finally a real document was issued, in which for the first time in history Russia legally admitted that chemical weapons were being developed. I can say without any exaggeration that it appeared thanks to me.

Hopefully, after this resolution was passed my colleagues, the specialists in chemical weapons, finally got their chance to appeal to the authorities and ask to have their pensions increased to the level of other employees working in especially dangerous and hazardous conditions. However, they probably don’t know that such a document exists. This is another reason why I am disclosing this document. Of course the KGB didn’t have these noble objectives in mind when it composed this document. It was designed to accuse me by retroactively creating a quasi-legal base to prove my guilt. A number of U.S. human rights organizations, politicians, representatives to the United Nations and others immediately started paying attention to this after I sent the “Resolution” on to my friend Gale Colby, who is now my wife, along with other excerpts from my case.

The “experts” Anatoly Kochetkov¹⁷⁴ and Boris Kuznetsov¹⁷⁵ and others started constantly referring to this resolution during their additional interrogations in the Investigation Department. So then, there it was. There were no doubts left about how and why this hurriedly adopted government document appeared. With a goal of intimidating the American journalist Will Englund in April 9 1993, the Investigation Department summoned him for interrogation as a witness.[183]^, [184]^, [185]^, [186] Will Englund categorically refused to testify against me and didn’t sign the transcript of interrogation. Unfortunately his interpreter Andrei Mironov made a mistake and signed the interrogation transcript as the interpreter, which could be taken as Will’s refusal to sign this document – just because of his lack of knowledge of Russian.

The investigator had no clear legal grounds on which to base my indictment, and so he tried to compensate for this gap by speaking about the alleged serious damage that my publications caused to interests of the state. The List of Major Information of State Secrecy contained the definition of secrecy. Information was considered secret if its revelation resulted in damage to the defense capability, state, military, political, or other interests of the country. For this reason Shkarin appealed to a number of departments with respective inquiries.[187]^, [188]^, [189]^, [190]^, [191]^, [192]

The response of the military¹⁸⁸ didn’t leave any doubt as to what their attitude toward my actions was.

This document became eloquent evidence of how “originally” our military leaders interpreted the Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Probably there is a general style of stating the objectives of the Convention that escapes me. But still, I couldn’t get rid of the thought: our military people are certain that the prohibition of the development of chemical weapons is not subject to any control – not only for them, but also, as they expressed, for other countries involved in the development of chemical weapons. I don’t know what other people would say, but I think this is more than alarming! Still, I felt slightly better because I knew that, to a considerable extent I had helped to prevent this perversion of the Convention, which hadn’t yet been ratified and or entered into force.

General Kolesnikov’s attempt to insert his overall contribution into the substance of my indictment proved less fruitful, except for exposing himself with the military’s “flexible” interpretation of the Convention.

The investigation asked the general whether I had damaged the defensive capabilities of Russia, which is the primary concern of the Head of the General Staff Headquarters. However, in response, the general refers to politics and some strange “military damage” without deciphering what it involved. Kolesnikov was openly deceitful when he accused me of disclosing the “…conventional names of these new substances and the overall development programs.” I have tried to cite all my articles in this book, so that the reader can independently judge what I wrote. It is very easy to see that there was no trace of “conventional names,” and even more so no “overall development programs.”

The answer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs put everything into its proper place.¹⁹² In its response, it precisely indicated that the factor which precipitated the Mirzayanov case and all the ensuing scandal, was the dangerous actions of the Russian military-chemical complex.

On May 13, 1993, I was summoned for the last interrogation, at which Senior Prosecutor Buivolov from the Attorney General’s Office, was present. The investigator showed me and my lawyer a resolution to drop the charges against me for my part in “disclosing information about the system of organizing promising applied scientific research work, carried out in the interests of the defense of the country, and about the cooperation of specific designers and the producers of chemical weapons…”

Evidently this clause was too absurd, even from the investigator’s point of view, because at that time there was enough information in the press regarding this, even without my articles. However, all the charges that I mentioned above, which the expert commission had obligingly rubber-stamped as expected, still stood in force. They were just reformulated in a new indictment. The interrogation that followed, after I was shown this new indictment, was a rather formal procedure. However, it didn’t prevent the investigator from sticking to his line and asking questions that had already become stereotypical. Such as the following excerpt from the transcript of the interrogation of May 13, 1993:[193]

On that day the investigator decided to record one more transcript of an interrogation to fulfill some kind of plan he had. He was interested in my attitude toward the General Staff Headquarters. In particular, he wanted to know what I thought about the assertion that the term “ammunition” also covered chemical weapons. He asked what I thought about the additional clarifications of the “experts” Gabov and Kochetkov.

Here are my answers to these questions:

Naturally, the investigation rejected this petition too, because it was obvious that the adoption of the above-mentioned government amendment confirmed, as clearly as could be, that there was nothing specific about chemical weapons on the above-mentioned lists. Therefore, the indictment had absolutely no legal basis to it. Of course, this wasn’t a problem for Captain Shkarin alone. It was the product of the hypocritical policy of the ruling elite of the U.S.S.R., which didn’t want to admit, even in the lists of top secrets, that it developed and produced chemical weapons. A perfect analysis was given by Valeri Rudnev of all these aspects of my case.[194]

However, I didn’t think then and I don’t think now that the investigator failed to understand all this. Of course he understood it, but it was important for him to formulate the indictment, and the judges were supposed to do the dirty work. In the course of their lives, the judges had their reliability tested many times by various district and city committees of the C.P.S.U. They always knew what they were doing, and the overwhelming majority of them faithfully served Lenin’s party, and still serves it, even though that party no longer exists. Many have convictions that are so steadfast that judicial reform in Russia is unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future.

Skipping ahead a little, I would like to explain why I underlined my words in the passage from the transcript of the interrogation. In answering the investigator’s question, I responded that “No, I am absolutely not guilty of the charges brought against me in the indictment.” I said the same at the interrogation on October 30, 1992. However, when I came to the U.S. several years later and saw the English translations of these transcripts made by Andrei Arnold, at the request of Gale Colby, I was literally shocked. My answer to the interrogator’s question in both transcripts was translated as “I plead partially guilty.” This translation was used to report my case in the U.S. to the State Department, senators and others. The reader can draw his own conclusions. However, the fact that some people in the U.S. were extremely dissatisfied with an audacious Tatar and were trying to compromise me is quite obvious to me. Otherwise, why did CIA use its disgraceful and provocative tactics against me?