At a major military base dating back to the Cold War, Russia is developing biological weapons, The Washington Post reported, citing satellite images.
The facility, known as Sergiev Posad-6, has in the past been known as a major biological weapons research center, including experiments with the viruses that cause smallpox, Ebola and hemorrhagic fevers. For decades, the base was inactive, but after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that changed.
A few months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, satellite images captured unusual activity at a secret military research facility nestled among birch forests northeast of Moscow.
Satellite images over the past two years have shown construction vehicles renovating the old Soviet-era lab and breaking ground on 10 new buildings, several bearing the hallmarks of biological labs dedicated to highly dangerous pathogens.
There are no signs that such weapons have been used in Ukraine, but the construction of new laboratories at Sergiev Posad-6 is being closely watched by US intelligence agencies and biological weapons experts amid concerns about Moscow's intentions.
Security measures at this Russian base are draconian. The Soviet-era laboratories at the Sergiev Posad-6 facility had a “very secure air handling system” to keep pathogens from “escaping,” experts said. A power plant independent of the local energy infrastructure is critical to maintain temperature and air circulation. This is the one that is currently created in the base.
U.S. officials and arms control experts, noting the secrecy surrounding the military facility, say they are concerned about how Russia intends to use the new labs. Intelligence officials and biodefense experts say it is impossible to tell from satellite images whether Russia plans to conduct offensive bioweapons research.
Biological and chemical weapons are banned by international treaties, but Moscow appears to be warning its adversaries that it could use unconventional weapons if forced to. Vladimir Putin has already threatened Ukraine and Western countries with the use of nuclear weapons.
Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin admitted in 1992 that the Soviet Union had built an arsenal of biological weapons, but the Kremlin later denied the claim, insisting no such weapons had ever been produced.
There is evidence that the Russian army has used chemical weapons on the front in Ukraine. In addition, the Russian services used such in the poisoning of Skripal and Navalny, enemies of the Putin regime.
Moscow has often accused the United States and its allies of plotting to use biological weapons against the Russians, without evidence. The United States ceased production of biological and chemical weapons in 1969 and completed civilian-supervised destruction of its Cold War stockpiles of biological weapons in 1972.
One of the Russian military units operating at Sergiev Posad-6 is under US sanctions for alleged involvement in illegal weapons activity, including helping to develop the chemical weapons used in the attempted assassination of Skripal. According to US officials, Russian scientists may actually believe that the threat (of the US and NATO producing such weapons) exists and therefore feel justified in creating and testing new weapons.