Russian developer of the substance that poisoned Skripal who emigrated to the USA spoke about the future of the ex-spy

Vil Mirzayanov, a former Soviet military chemist living in the United States who was one of the developers of the Novichok combat agent, said in an interview with British media that former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, poisoned with this nerve gas, will most likely die, and even if they survive, they will remain crippled. “Recovery is impossible,” he noted. Mirzayanov also stated that the formula of the substance is classified, and only Russia could produce it.

Mirzayanov also stated that the chemical formula of the substance was published only in his book. “Washington put a lot of effort into destroying my book. Didn’t achieve my goal,” the scientist wrote on his page on Facebook.

Photo by vilmirza / youtube

A native of Bashkiria and a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies, Vil Mirzayanov worked for 26 years at the main Soviet research institute involved in the development of chemical weapons in the USSR - the State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GNIIOKhT; also known as NII-42 and Mailbox- 702), writes "Medusa«.

In 1996, Mirzayanov emigrated to the United States, where he began teaching at Princeton University. Ten years later he published a book in which he spoke in detail about the chemical weapons program in the USSR.

Chemist said in an interview The Telegraphthat Novichok is still 10 times stronger than any existing nerve agent.

“These people - a man and his daughter - left. Even if they survive, they will not recover,” Mirzayanov said about the victims Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

He also revealed some details about Novichok. It turns out that it can be stored in two completely harmless components, which can be moved separately and then combined into an aerosol.

“Only 10 grams is already a lot. In the summer, just two grams will be enough to kill 500 people,” Mirzayanov said. He expressed fears that there are still people who may have been exposed to Novichok.

The specialist also stressed that the formula of the substance is still classified, therefore, in a country other than Russia, it could not be produced.

“Only Russia could do this... They can send him anywhere, in diplomatic baggage,” Mirzayanov suggested.

Recall that the chemist went to the United States in the 90-ies, after he published an article that Russia allegedly did not comply with international obligations to stop work on chemical weapons.

Chemist about poisoning "Novice": "Lean off, cirrhosis, disability, died"

About the substance "Novichok" "МК»talked with a chemist from a formerly secretive domestic institute and translated an excerpt from the book of Vila Mirzayanov, who was the first to publish information about Novichok.

The beginner's story begins in 1971, when the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology began to develop the strongest, unparalleled chemical weapons in the world. And they worked out: at the beginning of the 90, the authors received the Lenin Prize for military chemical weapons.

At the same time, the general public will learn about it: a former employee of the GNIIOKhT Wil Mirzayanov (now living in the US) organized a leak of the formula, which he himself said on Monday, immediately after Teresa May’s statement, and reminded him in the social network: “His chemical formula was published only my book ... Washington put a lot of effort to destroy it. Did not reach his goal. "

Mirzayanov stated that the chemical formula of the substance was published only in his book. “Washington put a lot of effort into destroying my book. Didn’t achieve my goal,” the scientist wrote on his Facebook page. Photo facebook.com/vil.mirzayanov

As it turned out, we are talking about the publication of „State secrets. An insider 's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapon' s Program “(State secret. Chronicle of the secret program for the development of Russian chemical weapons). Along with Mirzayanov, open sources on the Internet mention the names of two other scientists: Lev Fedorov and Vladimir Uglev. But nevertheless Mirzayanov owns publications related to the secret Russian substance.

The first was the article "Poisoned Politics" in the Moscow News newspaper from 1992, where he also talks about Novice. According to Mirzayanov, it was developed within the framework of the “Foliant” project and is a binary chemical weapon, that is, one that is brought into a “combat state” immediately before use (before that, its reagents, which are usually safe, are kept separate from each other friend).

However, the chemist Mirzayanov himself, according to his former colleagues, was still not part of the Novice development team. How could he know about the formula? I ask this question to a chemist with great experience who is familiar with Mirzayanov.

“It’s customary in our closed institutes: if one laboratory is working on some substance, only the actors themselves know about it; in the neighboring laboratory they don’t even know what’s going on behind the wall,” answers the interlocutor of MK. “However, Vil Mirzayanov was a good chromatographer - a specialist in the separation and analysis of mixtures of substances, as well as the study of their physical and chemical properties, which means that secret information could theoretically reach him.

— Which he, as an irreconcilable fighter against Russia, could share with his new compatriots?

— It is possible, because he was already charged with treason after the publication of information about Novichok in 92 in Moscow News. Then, under pressure from the “democratic public,” they released him, and he left for the United States, now lives in Princeton, he is already 82 years old.

— Could Western intelligence services themselves slip an analogue of Novichok to Skripal?

- Certainly. Surely they were also developing similar substances, they were just able to classify them better. And after the revelation of Mirzayanov, who also shared the formula, it turned out to be easier than ever to carry out the assassination attempt ourselves and shift the responsibility to Russia. It’s just strange that, having “found out everything,” the British intelligence services for some reason do not name the exact chemical name of the substance, but only its “nickname” - “Novichok.” This may indicate that they (having another analogue prepared by British scientists) are afraid of making a mistake, because the people developing the drug know such subtleties of its preparation that can always bring fraudsters to light.

— What if the substance was created strictly according to the original formula?

“Then it is impossible to recognize the place of its manufacture.”

“The fact that the victims Skripal and his daughter were very quickly given an antidote suggests that they knew about the toxic substance in advance...

- Most likely yes. This exposes the British intelligence services that they had everything ready in case of such a wild poisoning.

— Now please answer the question about in what form could Novichok be used? The British press writes, for example, about a poisoned bouquet. Is this possible?

“Destroying a father and daughter with a chemical warfare agent is generally very strange; you still have to be very careful with your conclusions and not be fooled by Theresa May’s lightweight data.” If they wanted to destroy them for the purpose of revenge, they would have done it very quietly. Here we need to look for someone who needed a loud scandal. And this is certainly not the Russian side.

The fact is that a nerve agent can pull into the grave not only the victims, but also those who present it, as well as completely unauthorized people, who by accident will suddenly find themselves near. So, our institute at one time was seriously poisoned by a cleaning lady who just breathed in pairs of agents. There was also a medical professor who, through negligence, poisoned himself and only, thanks to his deep knowledge, stretched out for several more years after that.

— Open sources also mention GNIIOKhT employee Andrei Zheleznyakov, who was poisoned with Novichok in 1987. Did you know him?

- Yes, I knew. At first his legs began to lose their strength, then cirrhosis of the liver developed, he became disabled and died, if I’m not mistaken, in 1992. So, if a similar substance was used in the Skripal case, then he and his daughter will be able to survive, but they will probably also face lifelong disability.

Insider Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

This is what Wil Mirzayanov writes in his book State Secrets: The Insider Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program (State Secrets: An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program), published in English in 2008.

“For a long time, Russia simply reproduced chemical weapons from Western countries, but at the beginning of 1970, Russian scientist Peter Kirpichev and his team created a new class of chemicals, many times more deadly than any other substances known at the time. Moreover, these chemicals were not a traditional organophosphorus nerve agent of known structure. ”

Further, Mirzayanov asserts that GosNIIOKhT urgently synthesized a pesticide with a similar structure. "This opened up the possibility of using agricultural chemicals as components of binary weapons." As Mirzayanov asserts, “even when negotiations were under way on a convention banning chemical weapons, Russia (meaning the USSR -“ MK ”) secretly and aggressively advanced in its program of developing and testing a new class of binary chemical, codenamed“ Novice ”. According to the Wyoming Memorandum (1989, MK), both the United States and Russia were obliged to declare their chemical weapons storage facilities, but Russia lied about the number of stored and never recognized the availability of the Novice program.

According to Mirzayanov, he decided to become a whistleblower (“If not me, who, maybe? I’m no one in the whole world knew about the“ Novice ”), for this purpose in September 1992 of the year he published an article about the Soviet chemical weapons in“ Moscow News. After that, a case was initiated against him. As Mirzayanov writes, “in the end, the investigation of the KGB played a cruel joke with them. They attached to my case more 60 secret and top-secret documents relating to the development of chemical weapons in Russia ... I legally copied them while reading the materials of the case ... From these documents, it became possible to understand how the Novice program for developing binary chemical weapons developed USSR, and then in Russia. "

According to Mirzayanov, despite the fall of the communist regime, the program continued until the end of 1992, and possibly after that: “Despite my revelations and ratification by Russia of the chemical weapons ban convention, the Novice program was not placed under international control, but A-230, A-232 and their precursors and binary components were not included in the list of controlled compounds of the Chemical Weapons Convention. ”

Later, Russian Senator Igor Morozov, who previously worked in the special services, refuted the statements of Mirzayanov, saying that there are no such substances in Russia now - they were completely destroyed.

Mirzayanov: “After such ordeals, my life has settled down... I am a happy person.”

Why did you take this step? — Mirzoyan is interested in the events of 1992 (the publication of the article “Poisoned Politics” in the Moscow News newspaper) Alex Grigoriev, correspondent of the Russian Service “VOA, In an interview in 2013.

Wil Mirzayanov: Of course, I decided this not for one day. Before that, I had been supporting Boris Yeltsin for two years when he fought against Soviet power. I participated in demonstrations in his support. Naturally, there was a response from the KGB: my department was disbanded, and I was dismissed from my job because I published an article about the same content in 1991 in the Moscow newspaper Kuranty. But, in the Moscow News, I published an article because there was no reaction to my previous publication.

What prompted me to do this? Russia seemed to be building a democratic society, but I was horrified to see that the military-industrial elite did not change its policy, that the world community was being deceived. For a decade and a half, Moscow negotiated the conclusion of an international Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and Their Destruction was approved by the UN General Assembly in November 1992 of the year - GA). But the “mine” was laid down in the convention - all old chemical weapons were forbidden, but there was no mention of new weapons. And we developed completely new generations of chemical weapons, began to produce them, and generals and civilian generals received Lenin prizes for this.

When the moment of signing this convention approached, I was horrified to find that I was in the company of these very deceivers. I could not afford it: everyone tries to be honest, work honestly and bring up children honest. I could not come to terms with this and turned to the press, because I categorically disagreed with the fact that Russia resorts to deception.

A.G .: After that, you started to pursue?

VM: Yes of course. Although my article did not disclose any secrets. There were no formulas or technological schemes - I did not write anything and did not talk about it. The article was just a statement of the fact that we have developed a new generation of binary weapons and intend to hide it from the world community. A month after the publication I was arrested. I placed all the investigation materials in my book “The Challenge”.

A.G .: Colleagues and acquaintances supported you?

VM: Colleagues reacted to my act more than restrained. Because fear dominates people. True, there were two people who came out in my defense. One of them is Andrei Zheleznyakov. He was very much poisoned by this new weapon, became disabled and no longer worked. Zheleznyakov agreed to give an interview to the magazine Novoye Vremya: this was a very important confirmation of my rightness, because otherwise the military could say that I had invented everything. His - disabled - did not dare to pursue. Unfortunately, he died a year after that.

A.G .: How did the Russian leadership react when you dragged the dirty linen out of the hut?

VM: The Russian leadership, of course, was against me. It conducted this business in the best traditions of the Cheka. Two days before my arrest, Boris Yeltsin held a meeting in the KGB. He was asked: "What to do with Mirzayanov, who is squandering state secrets?". And Yeltsin, in his simplicity, replied: "Act according to the law." They did - but under the KGB law.

The fact is that three years before my arrest, the law that gave grounds for my arrest was eliminated by a decision of the USSR Supreme Soviet: all by-laws that concerned the restriction of human rights should have been either published or found invalid. But life has shown that the KGB is absolutely not guided by the law. My case was concocted on the basis of these bylaws, which were never published.

A.G .: Now Russia destroys chemical weapons. Can we say that the ending of this story turned out to be happy for everyone?

VM: I have dual feelings. I supported this convention, despite the fact that I did not agree with its text. When I moved to America, I supported its ratification by the US Congress. Many senators subsequently sent me letters of thanks. Despite this, there are no new generations of Russian chemical weapons on the list of prohibited chemical toxic agents. Therefore, I have incomplete satisfaction from this.

I am not saying that Russia secretly produces these weapons - I do not have such information. But the fact that the convention turned out to be incomplete, not corresponding to its time, is bad. Because it is possible that even more terrible types of chemical weapons will be developed. After all, weapons are developed by laboratories and institutes, and they, according to the convention, are not subject to control.

A.G .: How was your life?

VM: I was imprisoned twice, a trial took place. And then the decision and. I was completely acquitted of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Alexey Ilyushenko, for the lack of grounds for my prosecution. But despite this, there was no place for my family and my work in Russia. Therefore, when I was invited to work in the United States, I happily agreed. I worked at Princeton University, then at the Radcliffe Institute ... I created a new family, I have two sons. Fortunately, after such ordeals, my life settled down ... I am a happy person.

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