Red Death: History of Russian secret weapons

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" Red Death " : History of Russian secret weapons

09/24/2004 20:52

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/14312_bioweapon.html

 

Soviet biotechnology stimulated development of Western science

 

Regardless of the commonly perceived notion concerning the underdeveloped

state of Soviet genetics, molecular-genetic researches have been developing

quite rapidly and with great deal of success during the last decade of the

Soviet empire. Nowadays, all leading Russian experts in the area of

molecular biology are working abroad.

 

When the SARS (Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus mystically emerged in

China and began its way worldwide, it lead some scientists to believe they

were dealing with a biological weapon of some sort. According to their

presumptions, the virus has been developed and afterwards illegally acquired

in China on the local black market.

 

In connection with recent events evolving around biological threats, the

West cannot help but think of a man who had once created an entire array of

most hazardous samples of biological weapons. Not one of today " s masterminds

of Soviet era come close to a 52-year-old Soviet scientist Vladimir

Pasechkin. He used to be considered the world's leading expert in biological

wars.

 

In October of 1989 Pasechnik decided to stay in England; after he escaped

the USSR, he " s been discussing his work with deadly viruses and bacteria in

numerous interviews with British special services for two years in a row.

His stories have deeply shocked British intelligence analysts. They mainly

concerned strategic missiles aimed at American towns and filled with

genetically modified viruses of horrible diseases.

 

From 1974 to 1981 Pasechnik has built a special laboratory with 400 staff

members. He " s come up with t a tremendous budget; the finances enabled him

to provide the best access to all up-to-date developments in the sphere of

biotechnologies in the West. The lab began its official work in 1981. Two

years later, Pasechnik has learned the truth: he found himself in the center

of the entire chain of factories and laboratories that were developing new

bio weapons. " Officially, we were developing some new vaccines., " later

recalled Pasechnik. " In reality however, we were working on creating new

technologies within the framework of a gigantic program of biological war. "

 

At first, Pasechnik had a rather vague idea of the scale of the entire

operation. It was not until later that he " s learned about two other labs

(similar to his) that had been built in Moscow, another two in the Moscow

suburbs and one more in Novosibirsk. Apparently, each and every single one

of them had been working on the same project. Five more industrial

facilities with 15 000 staff employees had been operating in other ends of

the country. The company called " Bio substance " had a budget of 200 million

rubles as well as $10 million USD.

 

This was one of the greatest secrets of the Cold war. The company " s main job

was to come up with new cultures of microbes, more powerful than any

existing types and manufacturing them in spray cans.

 

Pasechnik's lab was preoccupied with an interesting work: they attempted to

find new ways of filling shells, bombs and missiles with microbes and

ensuring their spread across vast territories once they hit the targeted

area.

 

Soviet Ministry of Defense was fully aware of the effectiveness of

biological weapons. Known as special-purpose weapon, it was meant to be used

not only as the final measure after nuclear explosion, but also during a

non-nuclear conflict to attack reserve troops. Each part of the program

violated the 1972 Convention signed by the Soviet Union which banned the use

of biological and chemical weapons. Who knows what would've happened, if

Gorbachev had not come to power.

 

Gorbachev " s epoch enables Pasechnik to change the direction of his research

work at the lab. As a true scientist, Pasechnik could not stop worrying

about the results he was getting.

 

NaÎve Soviet Scientist could not even conceive the idea that his work had

somehow violated International agreement of 1972. He did however feel that

the weapon he was working on was in fact a disgrace to his scientific

professionalism. In addition, he could not have possibly been totally

unaware of the fact that his genetically-modified weapon was a crime against

humanity.

 

So, after a number of turbulent years, Pasechnik has finally settled in

England. He works for a British company, loves his job. Around this time

however world " s leading microbiologists start dying under rather strange

circumstances. Eleven scientists have mystically died in the course of half

a year. All of them were somehow related to the development of

bacteriological weapons. The first three scientists died in 2001. Several

days afterwards, Vladimir Pasechnik dies suddenly in Salsbury. His body was

found not far from his house. According to a later report, he died of a

heart attack. More deaths occurred afterwards.

 

It appears that profession of a microbiologist could become one of the most

dangerous ones.

 

 

Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Anna Ossipova)