DISINFO: USSR and Russia never conducted research into the toxic substance Novichok
SUMMARY
We (Russia) have repeatedly stated that, unlike Western countries, neither the Soviet Union nor Russia, have ever performed research or experimental projects under the code “Novichok”.
RESPONSE
This is part of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign on the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after the use of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group was established beyond any doubt by a specialist Bundeswehr laboratory. The test proving Navalny's poisoning was conducted in a special German military lab. It was something far more dangerous, requiring the attention of the Army’s chemical weapons specialists. The claim that research and experimental projects under the code "Novichok" have never been implemented in Russia or USSR is not true. The name Novichok means "newcomer" in Russian, and applies to a group of advanced nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. They were known as fourth-generation chemical weapons and were developed under a Soviet programme codenamed Foliant. In 2017, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the full destruction of the 39,967 metric tons of chemical weapons possessed by Russia, but Novichoks were never declared to the OPCW and were not included in the Chemical Weapons Convention until 2019. After the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal with Novichok in Salisbury in 2018, Dr. Vil Mirzayanov said that “many countries could have had test samples, but production was only refined in the U.S.S.R. and Russia” and that Russia had to be behind the attempt on the Skripals because it “is the country that invented it, has the experience, turned it into a weapon... has fully mastered the cycle”. German Die Zeit says Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the newest type of chemical warfare agent Novichok - slower in effect than the already known Novichok, but more dangerous. According to some media, the new poison could not be created in any other conditions, except for the laboratories of the special services. See similar cases claiming that Russia doesn’t have Novichok anymore, that Poisoning of Navalny is a provocation to stop the construction of Nord Stream 2, that Navalny case is a special operation used to put pressure on Putin and just a pretext for the West to enforce Russophobia, and that the Novichok group doest not exist.