Old foes become allies in the war against bioterror

By Judith Ingram and Sergei Shargorodsky

Associated Press

OBOLENSK, Russia – The Soviet Union once ran a mammoth program to develop biological weapons for possible use against its enemies in the West. Today, some of the top scientists from that program are working with their old foes to build defenses against bioterrorism.

Western governments may harbor suspicions about secret programs still being pursued in Russia, and there are worries about former Soviet bioweapons experts being lured to work for states such as Iraq, yet Russia and the West are now allies in the war against terrorism, and the emphasis is on cooperation.

One of the cogs in the Soviet bioweapons program was the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology in Obolensk, about 50 miles south of Moscow.

It has one of the world’s biggest collections of anthrax, working with about 30 live strains and perhaps 10 times as many variants. It is one of the premier repositories of expertise on anthrax and other pathogens, and has become a key collaborator with U.S. scientists.

Obolensk scientists already are working on genetically altered antibodies that could block the anthrax toxin, a project financed by the European Union, and they are involved in a program to exchange strains with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. In November, President Vladimir Putin and President Bush signed an unprecedented agreement to encourage collaborative biodefense research.

“Today, our center is in demand in Russia, the United States and Europe for the very reason it was created: to develop methods of prompt detection of biological agents, elaboration of identification methods, preventive measures and treatment,” said Vladimir Volkov, the institute’s first deputy director.

Volkov and other Obolensk scientists skirt the other reason the institute was founded: to develop ever more deadly germs for warfare. Soviet researchers at Obolensk and other institutes experimented with about 50 biological agents, including anthrax, smallpox and plague.

Western governments are concerned that former Soviet scientists could now sell their expertise to some of the dozen states believed to be conducting illicit bioweapons programs.

At least 7,000 former Soviet scientists, the vast majority of them in Russia, are considered to be of “critical proliferation risk,” said Amy Smithson, an expert on chemical and biological weapons control at the Henry Stimson Center in Washington.

Those scientists are felt to have sufficient knowledge as to be able potentially to advance the biological weapons programs of such countries as Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya.

There is also some concern about four biological institutes in the Russian Ministry of Defense that foreign inspectors have never been allowed to enter. One is being transferred to the Ministry of Education, suggesting it will soon be open, but U.S. officials say privately they are concerned that some elements of a small-scale, offensive biological weapons program might be continuing in Russia.

“They don’t seem to be as transparent or open about all their activities as you would expect them to be. So the question is, is something going on that shouldn’t be?” said Michael Moodie, president of the non-governmental Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Washington.

Moscow long hid its program. After the Soviet Union signed a 1972 treaty banning the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons, the government launched the world’s largest biological weapons effort.

Part of the program, including Obolensk, was hidden under a nominally civilian but secret front called Biopreparat, which worked both on weapons and on biological agents employed for peaceful uses, such as medicines and pesticides.

Two top Biopreparat officials, the late Nikolai Pasechnik and Kanatjan Alibekov, who now goes by the name Ken Alibek, defected to the West. They revealed the huge dimensions and scientific advances of the germ weapons program, including development of super-resistant strains that could overcome existing Western vaccines and antidotes.

Inspectors from the United States and Britain were able to confirm some of the defectors’ testimony in trips negotiated with then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s government, and the program apparently began winding down in the late 1980s.

In 1992, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin announced an end to the Soviet biological warfare program and cut off government funds. Entire biological weapons facilities such as the testing ground on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea were abandoned while others tried, often unsuccessfully, to convert to civilian work. Many scientists lost their jobs – and some were courted by foreign states.

“When we talk about these rogue states being familiar with biological weapons, that may be due to some participation of ours,” said Igor Domaradskij, who was a deputy director at Obolensk for five years in the mid-1980s.

Domaradskij said he personally did not know any former Soviet scientists who had gone abroad in search of laboratory work, but he did know of some who had taught.

“I know that in the mid-’90s several quite prominent scientists – genetic scientists whom I do not want to name – prepared personnel for Iran,” he said. “But I think that ended several years ago.”

Western nations have tried to encourage former Russian bioweapons specialists to stay home through such programs as the nine-year-old International Science and Technology Center, which finances research and matches scientists in the former Soviet Union with foreign partners.

Randall Beatty, the deputy executive director of the center in Moscow, thinks the program has reached about half the scientists of top proliferation concern.

“We know for a fact that a number who had been receiving e-mails from Iran or Iraq or Pakistan are now very sensitive and cut off all communication with these organizations … because they want to be eligible to participate in programs like the ISTC,” Beatty said.

However, a Pentagon official said Iran’s agents continue to try recruiting scientists from second-tier facilities. “That effort has not stopped,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The ISTC has 35 research projects under way at Obolensk, where it began cooperation programs in 1997, and it has devoted more than $4 million in salary supplements and other support to the institute.

ISTC grants add $20 to $35 a day to scientists’ salaries, which this past year was on average the equivalent of only $83 a month at Obolensk. Work with the ISTC and other foreign partners has helped bring back several former Obolensk researchers who left in search of better pay, Volkov said.

Overall, the ISTC spends about one-quarter to one-third of its $75 million yearly grant budget on work in the biotechnology field in the former Soviet Union, most of it focused on public health problems such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and AIDS.

Smithson, the arms control expert, said the money should be doubled or tripled at a minimum.

“There isn’t sufficient funding in the program yet to keep even the critical proliferation risk bioweaponeers gainfully and peacefully engaged and to help them adjust their skills and add skills that would enable them to become self-sufficient in the commercial marketplace,” she said.

Obolensk, which employed more than 3,000 people in its prime, now has just over 1,000, half of them in research and the other half in production. Entire multistory buildings on the institute’s 622-acre grounds stand empty, while others have been revamped for commercial activities: a plant for making agar, an organic medium for laboratory cultures, and another to manufacture human insulin.

Both projects are a big step up from Obolensk’s previous attempts to generate revenue, including a now-defunct ketchup-making plant.

Volkov and other scientists see the emphasis on cooperation as some vindication for the decades of work they put in as Biopreparat researchers. While few say they aspired to do bioweapons work, and some toiled for years in ignorance of the ultimate goal of their research, they are proud of the scientific contributions they made.

“The people sitting here are prepared to use their brains for these goals,” Volkov said. “If they’re forced to make kefir, they’ll make kefir, but then they can’t be used for countering terrorism.”

Some of the scientists have remained in basic research, including Nikolai Staritzyn, one of the world’s top anthrax experts.

Staritzyn and a fellow Obolensk scientist, Andrei Pomerantsev, provoked suspicions of continued Russian military bioweapons programs when they published a 1997 article summing up the results of their work on introducing genetic changes into anthrax, making it resistant to existing antibiotics.

Staritzyn said the research was meant to address the mutability of anthrax, which occurs in nature – with 30,000 natural breeding grounds in Russia, where infected livestock are buried.

“In general, in science, we try to increase our knowledge,” Staritzyn said when asked about the fierce criticism the article provoked. “It’s up to politicians to decide how that knowledge will be used, and our cooperation with the United States and others is for the good of humanity.”

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Customers enter and exit the Costco on Dec. 2, 2022, in Lake Stevens. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Costco stores could be impacted by looming truck driver strike threat

Truck drivers who deliver groceries and produce to Costco warehouses… Continue reading

Two Washington State ferries pass along the route between Mukilteo and Clinton as scuba divers swim near the shore Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023, in Mukilteo, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ferry system increases ridership by a half million in 2024

Edmonds-Kingston route remains second-busiest route in the system.

The second floor of the Lynnwood Crisis Center on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025 in Lynnwood, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Funding gap leaves Lynnwood without a crisis center provider

The idea for the Lynnwood crisis center began in 2021 after a 47-year-old died by suicide while in custody at Lynnwood Municipal Jail.

Three injured after high-speed, head-on collision on Highway 522

Washington State Patrol is investigating the crash that happened before 4:30 p.m. on Monday.

Fernando Espinoza salts the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue South on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Think this is cold, Snohomish County? Wait until Tuesday

Tuesday could bring dangerous wind chill during the day and an overnight low of 19 degrees

Robin Cain with 50 of her marathon medals hanging on a display board she made with her father on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Running a marathon is hard. She ran one in every state.

Robin Cain, of Lake Stevens, is one of only a few thousand people to ever achieve the feat.

People line up to grab food at the Everett Recovery Cafe on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Coffee, meals and compassion are free at the Everett Recovery Cafe

The free, membership-based day center offers free coffee and meals and more importantly, camaraderie and recovery support.

Devani Padron, left, Daisy Ramos perform during dance class at Mari's Place Monday afternoon in Everett on July 13, 2016. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
Mari’s Place helps children build confidence and design a better future

The Everett-based nonprofit offers free and low-cost classes in art, music, theater and dance for children ages 5 to 14.

The Everett Wastewater Treatment Plant along the Snohomish River on Thursday, June 16, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Everett water, sewer rates could jump 43% by 2028

The rate hikes would pay for improvements to the city’s sewer infrastructure.

The bond funded new track and field at Northshore Middle School on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024 in Bothell, Washington. (Courtesy of Northshore School District)
Northshore School District bond improvements underway

The $425 million bond is funding new track and field complexes, playgrounds and phase one of two school replacements.

The Washington State Department of Licensing office is seen in 2018 in Seattle. (Sue Misao / The Herald)
Drivers licensing offices to close Feb. 14-17

Online services are also not available Feb. 10-17. The Washington State Department of Licensing said the move is necessary to upgrade software.

Pharmacist Nisha Mathew prepares a Pfizer COVID booster shot for a patient at Bartell Drugs on Broadway on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Everett lawmakers back universal health care bill, introduced in Olympia

Proponents say providing health care for all is a “fundamental human right.” Opponents worry about the cost of implementing it.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.