1. ????? With recent advances in gene editing, it may be possible for bioterrorists to design viruses capable of altering our behaviour, spreading such a disease and ultimately killing us. [23], In the 1980s, the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture successfully developed variants of foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest against cows, African swine fever for pigs, and psittacosis to kill chicken. 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. Both America and the Soviet Union experimented with anthrax, which can kill people when inhaled. 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. The Kremlin's Allegations of Chemical and Biological Weapons Lewitin explained that all of the bacterial strains mentioned in the documents were the kind of samples found in any public health lab or epidemiological institute. Updated: 15:41, 28 Dec 2020 EXPERTS fear Russian scientists are experimenting with the deadly Ebola virus as part of a terrifying "Doomsday" chemical weapons project. The Russian biological weapons program in 2022 By Robert Petersen October 5, 2022 On February 24, Russia launched a war of conquest against Ukraine after it had already illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and waged war for eight years in the Donbas. Top 5 countries most prepared for biological warfare The Soviet Union continued the development and mass production of offensive biological weapons, despite having signed the 1972 BWC. ???????:#?????? Biblical famine As well as a deadly zombie virus, Earth apparently 'will be hit with a famine of biblical proportions.' In 2012, they fought anthrax in the Altai Territory. "[33] They conclude that "In hindsight, we know that with the ultimate failure of the [negotiations] process and the continued Russian refusal to open the facilities to the present day, neither the Yeltsin or Putin administrations ever carried out 'a visible campaign to dismantle once and for all' the residual elements of the Soviet bioweapons program". It breeds and spreads among birds, but on rare occasion, it can infect . Project Factor was the codename for the budget to develop microbial weapons with new properties of high virulence, improved stability, and new clinical syndromes. (Most of that long thread was translated into English by Ilya Lozovsky, an editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 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. I hope that this is more of a disinformation talking point than an actual thing, Gronvall said. Georgia also invited international experts to examine the lab in person in November, 2018. The first Russian biologist to make his analysis of the evidence widely known wasEugene Lewitin, who holds advanced degrees in biology from Moscow State University and GosNIIgenetika, a biotechnology research institute. What if these labs are creating viruses just like COVID-19?. 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. All this suggests that the real lesson Russian officials took from the false American claims of WMD in Iraq is not that such claims need to be backed by solid evidence, but that they can make similarly false claims now, secure in the knowledge that very few people will bother to look at the evidence at all. The virus can be isolated and produced as a biological weapon. Russian President Vladmir Putin confirmed that his country is working on the creation of an electromagnetic gun that attacks its target's central nervous system, putting them in what we hope is a. Ivanovskii Institute of Virology. 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. In April 1974, a new agency, the All-Union Science Production Association Biopreparat, was created under the Main Administration of the Microbiological Industry (Glavmikrobioprom) to spearhead the Soviet offensive BW programme. Russian officials have repeatedly invoked the fact that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 on the false pretext that the country had weapons of mass destruction including mobile biological research laboratories as a reason to distrust the Americans now. Over the course of its history, the Soviet program is known to have weaponized and stockpiled the following bio-agents[3] (and to have pursued basic research on many more): These programs became immense and were conducted at dozens of secret sites employing up to 65,000 people. The program reportedly includes institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences from Pushchino. As a result there was a tightening-up of state control over personnel working on microbial pathogens and an emphasis on the gathering of intelligence from foreign legations relating to the feasibility and use of biological weapons. The UN high commissioner for disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, confirmed that the UN was not aware of any biological weapons programmes in Ukraine. Zombie Attack in Russia REAL(biological wapon) Ataque de Zombies en Rusia REAL (arma biologica).wmv - YouTube AboutPressCopyrightContact usCreatorsAdvertiseDevelopersTermsPrivacyPolicy &. Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities. ???????????? Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 and following the capture of nearby Kalinin in October, the BW facility on Gorodomlya Island was evacuated and eventually relocated to Kirov. ??? The Soviet Union's 1991 collapse made Russia the inheritor of the vast majority of the USSR's weapons of mass destruction. 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. Nostradamus' 2021 predictions: From world-ending Asteroids and ZOMBIES An outbreak of weaponized smallpox occurred during testing in 1971. Slightly more feasible is the "28 Days" scenario, where people go into a state of crazed rage; sort of a super hydrophobia. In the later summer of 1942, in the face of the German offensive to capture Stalingrad, there was a second evacuation of STI, which was eventually permanently relocated to Kirov, located some 896 kilometres north-east of Moscow on the Vyatka river. 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. 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. WASHINGTON (AP) The Biden administration publicly warned Wednesday that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine as the White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country it has invaded. Russia Continues To Lead On Chemical And Biological Warfare Military On March 13, Gabbard tweeted a video viewed nearly 3 million times, in which she falsely claimed that the public health labs were conducting research on dangerous pathogens and were engaged in that she called dangerous research, including gain of function, similar to the lab in Wuhan where Covid-19 may have originated from.. ????????? ?????????? 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. [4][45] The death toll was at least 66, but no one knows the precise number, because all hospital records and other evidence were destroyed by the KGB, according to former Biopreparat deputy director Kenneth Alibek. The world's most dangerous bioweapons - Army Technology Explosion at Russian lab known for housing smallpox virus | CNN In 1992, a Trilateral Agreement was signed with the United States and the United Kingdom promising to end biological weapons programs and convert facilities to benevolent purposes, but compliance with the agreementand the fate of the former Soviet bio-agents and facilitiesis still mostly undocumented. I guess we shall see., Russia makes claims of US-backed biological weapon plot at UN, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Russia 'researching doomsday weapons such as unleashing - The Sun An Unexpected Meeting: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia spoke face-to-face for the first time since Moscow's invasion . The Biden administration publicly warned Wednesday that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine as the White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons . Cook, Michelle Stem and Amy F. Woolf (April 10, 2002). Scientists from the. [35] At least two agents died, presumably from the transported pathogens. Biden said those accusations were not merely false, but a sign that President Vladimir Putin. Sverdlovsk bioweapons production facility (Military Compound 19). He also alleges that human experimentation occurred with typhus, glanders and melioidosis in the Solovetsky camp. [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. The WHO has worked in Ukraine for several years helping bio labs improve safety and security, so it knows what it is talking about. These are the 11 biological weapons the Soviets wanted to use on the US 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. U.S. Fights Bioweapons Conspiracy Theory Pushed by Russia and China In a phone call this week, Favorov told me that he suspects some of the Russian militarys wild ideas about what is happening in U.S.-funded labs in former Soviet countries is likely projection. ??????????? Because it upsets so many people that I talk to constantly, I have introduced a bill to stop taxpayer funding for bioweapons, Greene said. The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to terms ranging from two to twenty-five years in Soviet labour correction camps. 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 Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. ??????? [17] The new military institute later pursued major programmes focused on variola virus and viral haemorrhagic fevers. Ukraines ambassador to the world body, Sergiy Kyslytsya, called the idea being advanced by Russia a bunch of insane delirium. 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. 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. "[30] Yeltsin promised to end the Russian bio-weapons program and to convert its facilities for benevolent scientific and medical purposes. Operating under the codename "Ekologiya" (Ecology), the new network incorporated three virology facilities. 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. You know, if theres no evidence right now, that doesnt mean that no evidence exists, Zakharova said. Two major Japanese offensive BW installations at Pingfang and Changchun were overrun by the Red Army. [12] It was reported to use chicken eggs for the cultivation of the virus. [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. In the summer of 2016, the Russian army participated in the fight against the epidemic of anthrax in Yamal. Buildings at the site belonging to a smallpox institute, subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Health, were transferred to the military facility. [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. "I'm not . 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. (11 October 2013). ????????????? According to Alibek, in 1928, the Revolutionary Military Council signed a decree about the weaponization of typhus. [21] The Soviet bioweapon effort became a huge program rivaling its considerable investment in nuclear arms. Ukraine war: What chemical and biological weapons could Russia have ??????????? Fear and Loathing in Moscow: The Russian biological weapons program in Later that same summer, Leonid Moiseevich Khatanever, the new director of the Biotechnical Institute and an expert on Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularaemia), led a second expedition to Vozrozhdeniya. Rimmington argues that this "was in fact a pivotal period in the Soviet programme, when BW production technology was being transferred from the military to facilities concealed within civil manufacturing plants. Russia escalates false chemical weapons claims about US, Ukraine by In the summer of 1936, Ivan Mikhailovich Velikanov led the Red Army's first expedition to conduct tests of biological weapons on Vozrozhdeniya Island. 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 . 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. In an interview, Pettersson told me that while she had faced a torrent of online harassment because the collaborative research thread was posted on her Twitter account, she was most concerned for the safety of her colleagues in Russia and Belarus who had helped debunk the Russian governments claims despite living in countries where such criticism could bring severe consequences. Around 100 personnel from Velikanov's Biotechnical Institute participated in the experiments. Another Russian expat amazed by the Russian claims is Michael Favorov, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union three decades ago, after a long career in public health and epidemiology, and then oversaw CDC programs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Moscow Doesn't Like It", "Russia Commits to End Biological Weapons Program", Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, "Interview: Alexander Kouzminov, Author of Biological Espionage", "From Offence to Defence? No. And weapons developed in secret Soviet labs are still used to poison Russian dissidents and defectors. [1] The program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by Russia after that. Zombies, asteroids and scholarship: Nostradamus predicts 2021 Russia to Witness 'Zombie' Anthrax Outbreak? Our group observed nothing out of the ordinary, or that we wouldnt expect to see in a legitimate facility of this sort.. Leitenberg, Milton and Raymond A. Zilinskas (2012). Last week, both the Chinese statement and the Infowars video were promoted on Facebook as paid advertisements. [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. German intelligence independently identified the secret BW programme allegedly managed by Zlatogorov and Maslakovets. Fox News ??????? When Steve Rosenberg of the BBC put it to Zakharova in late 2018 that there was no evidence in the documents tracking the Sovaldi project that any biological weapons experiments on humans had been performed in the U.S.-funded lab, the Russian diplomat unwittingly echoed Donald Rumsfelds infamous remarks in 2002 on the lack of evidence for Iraqi WMD, in her reply. 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,. 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. 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. Ukraine war: Fact-checking Russia's biological weapons claims 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. The principal architect of the Soviet Union's first military biological programme was Yakov Moiseevich Fishman[ru]. [1] The program began in the 1920s and lasted until at least September 1992 but has possibly been continued by Russia after that. This week, speaking to business leaders in Washington, Joe Biden warned that Vladimir Putin could use biological weapons. In. White House warns Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine Kirillov also stated, without evidence, that a swine flu outbreak in 2007 and increased cases of measles, rubella, diphtheria, and tuberculosis in Ukraine had somehow been caused by biological research at U.S.-funded labs in Ukraine and the former Soviet republic of Georgia. 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 . That quickly made it a priority for the U.S. to help secure dangerous pathogens, particularly in some of the impoverished former Soviet states where anthrax is naturally occurring but had also been used in biological weapons experiments before the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Running parallel to the work underway at Vlasikha, BW research was also being pursued in an institution controlled by the state security apparatus. Chief among these is Erhardt Geissler who notes that tularaemia is endemic in the region and in any case a large outbreak occurred during the winter of 1941-1942. Russian survivalists prepare for next 'apocalypse' - Anadolu Ajans Finally, Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very crimes that Russia itself is perpetrating. He didnt take part, but some of his contemporaries did. According to the biologists, documents presented to the public last week by Russias defense ministry as supposed evidence of covert bioweapons labs under Pentagon control in Ukraine actually describe relatively harmless collections of pathogens used for public health research. Bioweapons designed to kill only people of particular race 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. The United Nations security council met earlier this month at Russias request, to discuss Moscows claims that the US is funding military biological activities in Ukraine in other words, secretly developing biological weapons in Ukrainian laboratories. On the House floor, Greene repeated the claims that have jumped from Russian state media to Infowars to Fox News as she introduced the Stopping the Spread of Taxpayer-Funded Bioweapon Act., Greene talks about Biolabs in Ukraine and announces her bill to prevent US taxpayer funding for Bioweapons pic.twitter.com/IJZDb9Tsop, Greene argued that her legislation was necessary because, in her words, there are reports of possibly deadly pathogens escaping these biolabs in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan that is [sic] responsible for killing people. She did not mention that those reports were from Russian state media, quoting claims Russian officials made based on faulty evidence. Two years earlier, the same nerve agent had been used in a botched attempt to murderSkripal in England. 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. This program focused on anti-crop and anti-livestock biological weapons, with Soviet efforts starting with FMD virus, for which an institute was established on Gorodomlya Island. So the Pentagon-funded projects, Favorov said, were focused on how to identify pathogens, how to introduce biosafety to all these labs which were working with these pathogens anyway. In many cases, Favorov added, I believe that Russians were kind of jealous that, you know, somebodys helping their used-to-be Russian colonies to organize better laboratories.. Nakamitsu pointed to the Biological Weapons Convention, which has prohibited the development and use of biological weapons since 1975. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on Thursday that the US undertook a secret biological weapons testing program in Georgia, killing at least 73 people. Both the US and Ukraine have categorically denied they are developing biological weapons inside the country. Putin could unleash deadly virus from seized Ukraine lab - and then At least one of the pilots was a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service officer". It conducted its secret activities at numerous sites across the USSR and employed 30-40,000 people.[20]. Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian militarys radiation, chemical and biological protection force, described documents on recent biological research in Ukraine at a briefing in Moscow on Thursday. Fact check: CDC's zombie apocalypse page offers general disaster tips 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. Zlatogorov was in fact one of the world's leading authorities on pneumonic plague and had studied 40 strains of plague bacilli from around the world. Simply not true, I guarantee you.. Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, presentation of faulty intelligence on Iraqs suspected weapons of mass destruction. Maybe there are dangerous strains in other documents that cannot be published openly., When I asked Lewitin in an online chat this week what he made of the other documents, on research projects involving American experts from the CDC and USDA, he replied: I would say that this is a hash of scattered information with no relevance to the subject [of] bioweapons. 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. In August 1958, the latter created a new Scientific-Research Technical Bureau (NITB), the prime task of which was to create covert dual-use BW facilities at a number of pharmaceutical and microbiological enterprises. But Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian defense ministry spokesperson, told the state news agency that the attempt to secure the labs was itself evidence that Ukrainian and American scientists had been secretly plotting to weaponize dangerous pathogens. The most important difference between biological weapons development, and the mundane but vital work of identifying, describing, and studying the viruses and bacteria that occur in nature and pose a threat to public health, Favorov told me, is that none of these labs have any type of equipment for the modification of the strain., In all these labs, he said, you only have the equipment which might describe what you have, but not to modify it., Update: Friday, March 18, 3:05 a.m. These worked in close collaboration with Soviet military virologists and focused on both animal pathogens such as FMD and exotic zoonotic infections.