1 Summary

The poisoning incidents in Salisbury, England in 2018 with an unusual organophosphate compound designated A-234 gave rise to wide coverage of the story that a novel class of nerve agents named “Novichoks” had been discovered in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and that development of these agents as weapons had continued in Russia in violation of bilateral agreements with the US signed in 1989 and 1990. This story, originating with the dissident Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov, has been accepted by many scientists and officials involved with chemical arms control. Russian officials however have denied that any studies under the name “Novichok” were ever conducted in the USSR or the Russian Federation. Official Russian statements have been supplemented with an unofficial explanation that the Novichoks story originated as a Russian counter-intelligence operation (“canary trap”) to identify Mirzayanov as a leaker, and that he was used (unwittingly) to channel disinformation after he had been identified. This article examines evidence in the public domain that is relevant to evaluating which of these two alternative explanations – chemical weapons programme or canary trap – is correct, based on primary sources.

Mirzayanov reported in 1992 that a new class of binary nerve agents named “Novichoks” had been developed during the 1980s at the GosNIIOKhT laboratories in Moscow, that field tests had shown one of these binary nerve agents to be several times more more effective than VX, and that three of these binary agents had been stockpiled in quantities of several tons from 1989 onwards. To assist Mirzayanov in preparing his defence against prosecution during 1993, he was provided with what were purportedly top secret documents confirming this story, before charges were dropped in 1994.

The only other account from a chemist inside the Soviet chemical weapons programme was provided by Vladimir Uglev, who stated that the compounds alleged to have been developed in binary form as Novichoks during the 1980s had been synthesized in unitary form in the 1970s in quantities of no more than a few kilogrammes, and that no binary formulations had ever been developed. Other information in the public domain rebuts or casts doubt on other key points in Mirzayanov’s story: that these compounds had structures similar to those published in the open Soviet literature as possible pesticides, that their precursors were widely available industrial chemicals, and that standard therapies for nerve agent poisoning were not effective against them. Mirzayanov’s credibility as an independent whistleblower is undermined by his role in a US government-sponsored operation to encourage Tatar separatism, coinciding with the publication of his book in 2008 which gave structures for the compounds allegedly developed as fourth generation nerve agents into the early 1990s.

From information in the public domain it is possible to deduce that the US military knew the phosphylated amidine structures designated as A-232 and A-234 by early 1997 and that by 1998 they had synthesized these compounds, studied their toxicity in vivo, and reported the results publicly. The results of these studies were subsequently removed from public databases, and the toxicity studies remain classified. From in silico predictions and clinical histories it is possible to infer that the low volatility and slow percutaneous absorption of these compounds would have limited their usefulness as chemical weapons.

The evidence that is publicly available thus supports the explanation that the Novichoks story originated as a counter-intelligence operation rather than a real chemical weapons programme. If this was the case, the operation has backfired by creating a situation in which incidents in which these “fourth generation agents” are detected are blamed on Russia. The success of efforts to eliminate the stockpiling of chemical weapons, together with establishment of international mechanisms to detect and report on any use of such weapons, may have had the unintended consequence of facilitating operations that attribute the possession or use of chemical weapons to an adversary.

2 Introduction

The poisoning incidents in Salisbury, England in 2018 gave rise to wide coverage of a story originating with the Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov in 1992 that a novel class of nerve agents named “Novichoks” had been discovered in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and that development of these agents as chemical weapons had continued after Russia had negotiated the Chemical Weapons Convention and signed the Wyoming Agreement in 1990. This story has been accepted by many commentators on chemical weapons and chemical arms control. In contrast, Russian officials have denied that any studies under the name “Novichok” were ever conducted in the USSR or the Russian Federation, and have stated that all chemical weapons programmes were stopped in 1991-92, but have not denied that the chemical compounds purported to be Novichoks were studied at bench scale in Russia. The official Russian version has been supplemented with an unofficial explanation that the Novichoks story originated as a Russian counter-intelligence operation to identify Mirzayanov as a leaker.

For reasons explained below, the possible explanations of the Novichoks story can be reduced to these two alternatives: a chemical weapons programme or a counter-intelligence operation. This article examines evidence in the public domain that is relevant to evaluating which of these alternatives is true. In contrast to other commentaries on the Novichok story that have relied on secondary sources, this review is based strictly on primary sources in the public domain.

3 Mirzayanov’s story from 1991 to 1995

Descriptions of a secret “Novichok” programme were published in the press before Mirzayanov was arrested and charged with revealing state secrets on 22 October 1992. Russian language articles were published on 10 October 1991 in Kuranty, on 16 September 1992 (co-authored with Lev Fedorov) in Moscow News, on 20 October 1992 in Moskovsiye Novosti, and on 22 October 1992 in Novoye Vremya. English-language articles in the Baltimore Sun were published on 16 September 1992 and 18 October 1992. The Baltimore Sun however quoted a sceptical opinion from Lora Lumpe, an arms control researcher at the Federation of American Scientists. The most detailed first-hand version of Mirzayanov’s story was given in an article published in 1995 after he had settled in the US.

Mirzayanov alleged that:

• The Soviet Union had “intensified the development and testing of the most modern class of chemical weapons during the final stages of the CWC’s negotiations”, in violation of two bilateral agreements with the US: the 1989 Wyoming Memorandum of Understanding on bilateral exchanges of information about chemical weapon stockpiles, and the 1990 Moscow Bilateral Destruction agreement. President Gorbachev had been aware of this programme and had secretly awarded decorations to the two officials in charge of it.
• New unitary (that is, not formulated as binary) agents, designated A-230 and A-232 had been developed by GosNIIOKhT (State Union Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology) in Shikhany, Saratov in a continuation of the programme in which Russian VX (aso known as Substance 33 or VR) was developed.
• A-230 had been tested in 1988, adopted as a chemical weapon in 1990 and produced in “tens of tons”. “A few tons” of A-232 had also been produced. Mirzayanov did not use the term “Novichok” for these unitary agents, and did not mention a compound designated A-234 at this stage.
• A new secret program under the codename “Foliant” began at GosNIIOKhT in Moscow in 1982, leading to the development of a new binary agent named Novichok-5 produced in 1987 and tested in 1989. These tests showed that it “under optimal conditions exceeds the effectiveness of VX by five to eight times”. It was produced in quantities of “a few tons”. Novichok-5 was described by Mirzayanov as a binary version of A-232, or (in apparent contradiction) as “based on A-232” with A-232 as “a Novichok precursor”. Mirzayanov did not mention any field tests of A-232, only of its supposed binary version designated Novichok-5.
• Another binary agent designated Novichok-7 was developed by GosNIIOKhT in Moscow and tested in 1993. It was found to be “approximately ten times more effective than soman” and to have similar volatility. It was produced in “tens of tons”. The information about tests in 1993 must have reached Mirzayanov after he had been charged with revealing state secrets in October 1992.
• “The chemical components or precursors of A-232 and its binary version Novichok-5 are ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and pesticides.”
• Poisoning with Novichok-5 is difficult to treat and causes long-term disability. “If someone is affected by it, even if it only gets on the skin, it is practically impossible to effect a cure. I know people who were subjected in the past to the effects of this toxin. They were all left invalids.”

This last statement would have suggested, to anyone familiar with the toxicology of organophosphates, that the Novichok agents were “delayed neuropathic agents” which bind to the enzyme neuropathy target esterase (NTE) with onset of irreversible paralysis a few weeks after exposure. Although some organophosphates formerly used as pesticides have off-target effects on NTE causing delayed neuropathy, there has been no evidence (other than this element of the Novichok story) of a deliberate attempt to develop such compounds for military use.

In December 2008, some 13 years after he had emigrated to the US, Mirzayanov published an autobiography in which he gave structures for five phosphylated amidines containing P-N=C-N bonds designated A-230, A-232, A-234, A-242 and A-262. A-234 differed from A-232 by the substitution of an ethyl for a methyl group. A synthetic pathway for A-232 was given, in which acetonitrile was a precursor.

Mirzayanov’s story in this book differed from what he had written during 1992 to 1995.

• the term Novichoks was used to to denote the unitary agents discovered in the 1970s, rather than the binary agents supposedly developed in the 1980s.
• it was the unitary agent A-230, rather than the binary version of A-232 designated Novichok-5, that was described was “5 to 8 times more lethal” than VX under field conditions.
• A-232 was described as having “the same toxicity” as Russian VX but was “much more volatile”. Field tests of A-232 were “just as successful” as those for A-230. A programme to develop a binary formulation is mentioned briefly, but no further details are given. The designation Novichok-5 appeared only in the copies of purportedly top secret documents made available to Mirzayanov during 1992-93 to prepare his defence.

4 The official Russian position

The Russian envoy to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya stated on 15 March 2018 that

No research, development or manufacturing of projects codenamed Novichok has ever been carried out in Russia, all CW programmes were stopped back in 1991-92._

In a television interview the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave a still more comprehensive denial:-

Never on the territory of the USSR in Soviet times or in the times of the Russian Federation on its territory have there been studies conducted under the code name Novichok. It was neither patented, nor used as a symbol or a code. Once more, as this is the key thing: the word Novichok has never been used in the USSR or in Russia as something related to chemical weapons research.

At a briefing by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 21 March 2018, Viktor Kholstov, Director of the Centre for Analytical Research on Chemical and Biological Weapon Conventions under the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade stated that:

Vil Mirzayanov did not have these formulas in the early 2000s. Trying to earn a living and to improve his finances, Mirzayanov published a new book, probably in cooperation with the Edgewood Arsenal, titled “State secrets: an insider’s chronicle of the Russian chemical weapons programme.” This book included some formulas.

An Aide memoire on enhancement of the Chemical Weapons Convention submitted by the Russian delegation to the Executive Council of the OPCW on 18 April 2018 reiterated that Mirzayanov had not known the chemical structures that he published in his book in 2008 until they were provided to him by the Edgewood Arsenal, and argued that the publication of the structures in Mirzayanov’s book was “indirect transfer of chemical weapons” in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

5 Uglev’s story: corroboration or rebuttal?

Vladimir Uglev, who worked from 1975 onwards at the Saratov branch of GosNIIOKhT has been widely quoted as corroborating Mirzayanov’s story. Uglev gave an interview in in February 1993 to Novoye Vremya, in which he was asked about Mirzayanov’s story. Some 25 years later on 20 March 2018, Uglev was interviewed by The Bell, a pro-opposition news outlet. Another article quoting Uglev as a source was published in The Project in September 2018.

Uglev stated that he had worked in a research group led by Pyotr Kirpichev “who in 1973 for the first time was able to obtain a fundamentally new phosphoric toxic agent with a paralytic action on the nerves that subsequently received the name”Novichok.“. In the 1993 interview he stated that five of these compounds went through development to the stage of field testing, and that he had discovered three of them. In the March 2018 interview he gave the code names of four (rather than five) compounds as A-1972, B-1976, C-1976, and D-1980. He stated that he had developed the second and third of these, and added that one of these compounds was used in the Kivelidi poisoning. In the September 2018 article, apparently sourced from Uglev, these four compounds are respectively designated A-230, A-232, A-234 and A-242. Uglev had stated in 1993 that several kilogrammes of”the new substance” were produced, and in 2018 “20 grammes to a few kilos”. Uglev’s story is consistent with Mirzayanov’s in that he states that new unitary agents were discovered in Saratov during the period 1972-1980 and that these agents were not designated Novichoks. He states that the quantities synthesized at this time were no more than a few kilogrammes. If, as Mirzayanov alleged, binary versions of these compounds had been developed in Moscow during the 1980s, tested in Uzbekistan and stockpiled in quantities of several tons, Uglev in Saratov would not necessarily have had first-hand knowledge of these developments.

Prompted in the 1993 interview to confirm Mirzayanov’s story that tests had shown “the new substance” to be 5-8 times more effective than VX, Uglev answered in words that indicated his information was not based on first-hand knowledge: “The military people have whispered to me that it is a minimum of 5-10 times”. Uglev stated that binary agents had been developed but again indicated that this was not based on observation at first-hand:-

• Of the three new toxic substances that Uglev discovered, one was “a basic component of a binary that, according to my information, has gone through successful testing on the range”.
• “I have information on the existence in Russia of a minimum of one kind of binary weapon made on the basis of the so-called Novocheboksarskiy product [Russian VX]”
• “I know about production as well: a certain quantity of components of a binary weapon is now being kept at a secret storage depot”.

In the 2018 interview, Uglev contradicted his own and Mirzayanov’s earlier statements about binary formulations, stating unequivocally that:

No one ever had any binary weapons. I think that several of my colleagues, just like I did, tried to work on this idea, but I don’t know a single binary weapon, not for VX, not for other types of chemical weapons. At least for the period up until 1994.

6 Fake corroboration: the 2003 Amazon book review

On 16 March 2004 an amateur chemist in Baltimore posted on a science forum an edited copy of a book review that had been posted on Amazon on 16 November 2003, but is no longer on that site. This had been posted under the name Anatoly Kuntsevich as a review of the Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents by D Hank Ellison. The review contained obviously false information, stating that Ken Alibek (a former Soviet biological warfare expert) was an alias for Vil Mirzayanov. Anatoly Kuntsevich, who had been deputy commander of Soviet chemical forces, had died in 2002.

The review stated that Novichoks belonged to “the class of organophosphate structues containing a dihaloformaldoxime group”, and that the binding of these compounds to their target was resistant to reactivation by oximes such as 2-PAM. These dihaloformaldoxime structures had P-O-N=C-X.Y bonds, where X and Y are halogens. The review included a brief but apparently accurate description of papers on the possible use of dihaloformaldoxime compounds as pesticides, published in the open Soviet literature during the late 1960s and early 1970s, apparently corroborating Mirzayanov’s story that Novichoks had structures similar to those published as possible pesticides.

This posting on the sciencemadness.org forum in 2004 was the basis (Hoenig, personal communication 2019) for a discussion of the posited structures of Novichok agents in a new edition, published in November 2006, of the Compendium of Chemical Warfare Agents by Steven Hoenig, a forensic chemist who has served as chemical defence specialist with the National Guard in the US. Hoenig emphasized that “these compounds have been subjected to some debate, but very little is known about them in detail”. The discussion in Hoenig’s book was in turn the basis for two more publications that were widely quoted as sources for Novichok structures: the second edition of D Hank Ellison’s Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents, published in August 2007, and a patent entitled “Method of treating organophosphorous poisoning”, for which a continuation-in-part was submitted by the University of Maryland and the US Army on 27 August 2008. It appears that the Amazon book review was the primary source for all other publications giving dihaloformaldoxime structures for Novichoks.

7 US studies of the phosphylated amidine compounds identified as Novichoks

A German newspaper reported in May 2018 that the German intelligence service had acquired a sample of what was purported to be a Novichok compound from a scientist in Russia in the 1990s, that this sample was sent to Sweden for analysis, and that the result was shared with US and UK intelligence services. Based on information from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, the BBC journalist Mark Urban confirmed this story, reporting that the compound had been identified as A-232 and that Porton Down had analysed it by 1998. If, as this story indicates, obtaining a sample of a purported Novichok agent was a key objective for western defence intelligence agencies in the mid-1990s, this implies that at this time they did not know the structures of these compounds. Urban’s source has thus (perhaps unwittingly) corroborated the statement by Russian officials that Mirzayanov did not know the structures of these compounds when he left Russia.

A 1997 newspaper article with the title “Russia dodges chemical arms ban” quoted a secret report in the Military Intelligence Digest of 24 January 1997 as follows: “By using chemicals not specified in the CWC schedules, the Russians can produce A-232 and its ethyl analog A-234, in unitary and binary forms within several chemical complexes”. One binary formulation was said to use acetonitrile and an organic phosphate compound “that can be disguised as a pesticide precursor”. The mention of A-234 as the ethyl analogue of A-232, and the mention of acetonitrile as a precursor indicates that the structures with these designations that appeared in Mirzayanov’s book in 2008 were known to the US military by early 1997. The article identified the author of the report as James Poarch, then serving as a chemical engineer to the US National Ground Intelligence Center. At this time US Senators were divided on whether to support ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The article quoted an anonymous Pentagon official as commenting that the intelligence report “clearly shows the Russians are circumventing the treaty”.

The head of the Russian chemical weapon detection laboratory revealed on a Russian television programme (at 1:11:53 in the recording) that Edgewood Arsenal had submitted a mass spectrometry profile for a compound named N-(O-ethyl-fluorophosphoryl)-N’N’-diethylacetamidine (corresponding to the structure designated A-234 in Mirzayanov’s book) to the public mass spectrometry database NIST98. The entry in NIST98 cross-referenced an entry in the database RTECS (Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances), implying that toxicity results had also been submitted. This is consistent with allusions to in vivo toxicity studies in the Chemical Hazards Emergency Medical Management (CHEMM) guide on Fourth Generation Agents issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services in January 2019. On further enquiry, an official of the Department of Health and Human Services has stated (personal communication) that these studies were undertaken by the US Department of Defense “for defense purposes, toward developing countermeasures”.

NIST98 was current from 1998 to 2001. The entry for A-234 in NIST98 was not present in subsequent versions of the NIST mass spectrometry database, and no entry for this compound now exists in RTECS. This establishes that the US Department of Defense was studying these compounds and their toxicity around 1997, and that at some time after this it was decided to remove this information from the public domain.

8 Mirzayanov’s role as a Tatar separatist in 2008-09

A post on the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Tatar language website Radio Azatliq on 27 October 2008 had announced that Mirzayanov had been elected the previous day to the “Praesidium of the Milli Mejlis [national parliament]” apparently consisting of ten people including Mirzayanov, whose book was published seven weeks later on 18 December. On 20 December at another meeting of the Milli Mejlis two days after the publication of his book, Mirzayanov signed a Declaration of Independence of Tatarstan, proclaiming himself head of state of a Tatar government in exile. The support of the US government for Mirzayanov’s role in Tatar separatism may explain why subsequent discussions of his book by delegates to OPCW and the Australia Group were closely monitored and discouraged by the US State Department. A Russian view of this attempt to sponsor a Tatar separatist movement was given in an article in Nevismaya Gazeta dated 9 December 2009, translated for a private intelligence report (item 20):

As though in confirmation, the so called “government of Tatarstan in exile” was formed in the United States in December 2008. It is headed by US citizen Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian scientist granted political asylum in the United States. Along with Mirzayanov himself, the alleged government includes two Germans and a Turk. This self-proclaimed government already appealed to the UN to recognize independence of Tatarstan in the manner sovereignty of Kosovo, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia had been. The US-Tatar affair then developed in the following manner. An impressive delegation of US Department of State functionaries visited Tatarstan in March. This visit got scant media coverage. The diplomats meanwhile toured the republic and met with religious celebrities, leaders of national movements, and officials of the republican administration. Before that, the American-Tatar relations had been limited to sporadic contacts with officials of the US Embassy that sponsored all sorts of humanitarian and educational programs (like Tolerant Tatarstan) in the republic. US President Barack Obama mentioned Kazan in his speech before the student body and faculty of the Russian School of Economics this July. Clinton made a visit to Kazan in October. She became the first US state secretary to venture out of Moscow or St.Petersburg while in Russia.

As Tatarstan is in the mid-Volga region far from the Russian borders, Tatar independence would have been possible only in the context of a Yugoslavia-style breakup of the Russian heartland. Tatars have been integrated into the Russian elite, especially the military, since the 18th century. The timing of the publication of Mirzayanov’s book to coincide with a US-government sponsored operation in which he was declared leader of a Tatar government-in-exile strongly suggests that the book itself was part of this operation.

9 Cases of poisoning with A-234

10 Chemical and toxicological properties of A-234 and other A-series compounds

11 Discussion

It is not disputed that the compounds A-232 and A-234 were studied during the 1970s in Saratov, but there is no evidence to support Mirzayanov’s story that binary formulations of these compounds were developed in Moscow during the 1980s, designated “Novichoks”, found to be more effective than existing agents, and stockpiled in quantities of several tons in violation of bilateral agreements with the US.

This review has shown that all the key points in Mirzayanov’s story are rebutted by other accounts or by information now in the public domain.

• A scientist widely quoted as corroborating the story has stated that the compounds were not designated Novichoks, the quantities produced were no more than a few kilogrammes, and that no binary versions were developed.
• As the compounds appear to be highly stable, binary formulations would not have been necessary for them to be developed as weapons. By 2008 Mirzayanov’s story had substantially changed: the term Novichok was used for the compounds themselves, not the supposed binary formulations.
• The structures of these compounds (phosphylated amidines) are not similar to structures published in the open Soviet literature as possible pesticides.
• The battlefield effectiveness of the compounds designated A-232 and A-234 would have been limited by their low volatility and slow absorption through the skin (inferred from the delayed onset of symptoms in known human cases of exposure and supported by in silico predictions).
• The story that Western chemical defence agencies first learned the structure of these compounds from a sample provided in the mid-1990s is corroborated by records indicating that chemical and toxicological studies of these compounds were undertaken around this time by the US Department of Defense. This in turn corroborates the statements by Russian officials that Mirzayanov did not know the structures of these compounds when he left Russia (as otherwise he would have revealed these structures when he was debriefed), and thus that the US government provided him with the structures that he published in 2008.
• The publication of this book, timed to coincide with Mirzayanov’s role in a US government-sponsored Tatar separatist movement, indicates that by this time the Novichok story was being exploited for foreign policy objectives.
• As the US proceeded to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention in April 1997, it appears that by this time the US government no longer had any serious concerns about an alleged secret Russian programme.

It is clear that both the US and Russian governments are withholding information about their own studies of these compounds. The US Department of Defense has removed public records that these compounds were studied at Edgewood Arsenal in the mid-1990s, and refuses to reveal the results of in vivo toxicity studies. Russian officials have not denied that these compounds were studied at bench scale, but have not provided any explanation of the purportedly top secret documents made available to Mirzayanov in 1993.

The publication of the structures of A-232 and A-234 in 2008 would have laid the basis for them to be used to lay a trail pointing to Russia, whoever was the perpetrator. If the Novichoks story was originally a disinformation operation, it has backfired some 25 years later to cause serious damage to Russia’s relations with western countries. For Russia to counter this, a first step would be to publish a complete account of Russian research on these compounds, including any in vivo toxicity studies.

12 Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the late Julian Perry Robinson for making available material from the Sussex Harvard Information Bank and for detailed comments on an earlier draft of this article. I thank Steven Hoenig for discussions on the sources of published Novichok structures. All other source information used in this article is publicly available. Responsibility for this article is the author’s alone.

13 Conflicts of interest

The author has no conflict of interest to declare.