According to reports, Vladimir Putin’s bioweapons stockpile may be located today in a Soviet-era laboratory in Siberia. Anthrax, HIV, Ebola, smallpox, and the Marburg virus are among the deadly illnesses allegedly housed in the lab complex of the State Centre for Research on Virology.
The laboratory was established as a biological warfare research center during the highest point of the military war in 1974. For now, it is one of Russia’s most tightly guarded places, with barbed-wire fencing and armed guards stationed outside its entrances.
The 70,000 square-foot complex is one of 100 research and administrative structures of the complex, which is recognized in Russians as ‘Vector.’ After the Soviet Union fell apart in 1992, Russia claims the facility, which was one of a dozen involved in the production of bioweapons in the Soviet Union, shut off development into the weaponry.
The lab’s official focus is currently on producing vaccinations for deadly viruses. It began investigating archaic viruses discovered in paleolithic horses rescued from thawed permafrost in Siberia last year. Despite Russia’s claims to the contrary, a US State Department study released last year indicated the country “maintains an offensive biological weapons program,” as per the Dailymail news.
Use of Bioweapons
Since the Kremlin had signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, Biopreparat used biotechnological approaches for genetic engineering. With the help of the USSR Academy of Sciences, it aims to improve the ability of agents to increase virulence, express poisons, or gain antibiotic resistance during storage and aerosolization.
When the Russian Federation took over the USSR in 1992, Biopreparat remained, and Western intelligence anticipated that the offensive biological weapons project would be continued. This was corroborated by Ken Alibek, the person in charge of procedures and a senior diplomat who was a former senior director of Biopreparat, based on the research paper of the NCBI page.
Mr. Putin is ready of employing weapons of mass devastation if it helps him achieve his aim of conquering Ukraine, according to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United Nations’ US Ambassador. It comes after the US envoy to the UN suggested that Putin may use bioweapons to destroy the Ukrainian government, warning that ‘nothing is off the table’ for Putin.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield is the 2nd US official over the last week to raise the potential that Mr. Putin would choose to use Weapons of Mass Destructions upon Ukraine. Sec of State Anthony Blinken told the UN Officials on February 18 that traditional attacks were not really all that Russia aims to unleash upon the inhabitants of Ukraine.
While Russia has signed international treaties prohibiting the use of chemical warfare, another Russian supporter, Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad, has employed chemical weapons in his country’s lengthy civil war, according to the report of the Independent news.
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