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Following the death of a laboratory technician in Russia, politicians and the media – particularly in the US – are pointing to a network of laboratories where biological weapons were allegedly tested as far back as the Soviet era.
The Institute for Plague Research in Irkutsk, north of Mongolia, has for decades been a repository for highly virulent strains of plague, anthrax and other pathogens. Officially, these Russian laboratories serve to protect public health, but according to a US study, the plague laboratories collaborated with the USSR’s biological weapons programmes, as reported by the New York Post (source in German).
Euronews interviewed Dr Mirko Himmel, an expert on biological weapons from the University of Hamburg, about research into weapons using plague pathogens. The scientist explains that a distinction must be made between defensive research – permitted under international law, or ‘biodefence research’ for short – and prohibited offensive research into biological weapons and methods of biological warfare.
Suspected cases of biological weapons research
“Biodefence research, which will certainly also deal with the plague pathogen as a biological agent, can be found in many countries with the appropriate technical, human and financial resources. These include the US, the UK, Russia, China, EU countries such as Germany and France, and others”, says Himmel.
“There is no detailed information on offensive biological weapons research that has been made public by states; however, corresponding suspected cases have been reported. The US, in particular, suspects China, Russia, North Korea and Iran of running offensive biological weapons programmes.”
According to Mirko Himmel, biological defence research could be used as a cover for offensive biological weapons programmes.
Plague bacteria could be sprayed as a mist of droplets
Euronews also asked the biological weapons expert how plague bacteria could – theoretically – be used as weapons.
“If, despite the internationally agreed ban, state actors were to develop and have ready-to-use biological weapons using the plague pathogen as the active agent, then, for example, victims of a biological weapons attack using the plague pathogen could contract pneumonic plague by inhaling the aerosolised pathogen”, says the expert.
Admittedly, such programmes are generally secret. “However, it can be assumed, for example, that there are plans to disperse the plague pathogen as a biological agent in the form of bioaerosols (‘atomised droplets’) via aircraft or explosive devices,” says Himmel.
Challenging bioweapon research verification
Technically speaking, no offensive biological weapons arsenals held by states are currently publicly known, the expert explains. Despite the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) being a disarmament and arms control treaty, “the ban lacks a verification mechanism to check whether member states are complying with the treaty.”
“There should therefore be no biological weapons based on the plague pathogen as a biological agent”, says Mirko Himmel.
Though this cannot really be verified. “Due to the lack of a verification regime in the BWC, it therefore remains unclear to civil society whether, and to what extent, states are conducting research into biological weapons.”