poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
{{Short description|Secret research facility in the Soviet Union}}
{{Use American English |date = April 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates |date = April 2019}}
{{Infobox laboratory
|name = Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services
|established = {{start date and age|1921}}
|type = Classified
|research_field = Poisons capable of killing humans
}}
The poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera (which means "The Cell" in Russian), was a covert research-and-development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the laboratory manufactured and tested poisons,[http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/transcript/1747128.html KGB Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218110821/http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/transcript/1747128.html |date=February 18, 2012 }}, RFE/RL, interview with Boris Volodarsky (Russian) - [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111282082770699984 English version] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170818010635/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111282082770699984 |date=August 18, 2017 }}{{cite journal |author1=Shoham, D. |author2=Wolfson, Z. | title = The Russian Biological Weapons Program: Vanished or Disappeared? | journal = Critical Reviews in Microbiology | volume = 30 | issue = 4 |date= October–December 2004 | pages = 241–261 | doi = 10.1080/10408410490468812 | pmid= 15646399|s2cid= 30487628 }} and was reportedly reactivated by the Russian government in the late 1990s.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremlin-silence-critics-poison.html|title=More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead|last=Kramer|first=Andrew E.|date=2016-08-20|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-08-21|archive-date=August 21, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821014408/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremlin-silence-critics-poison.html|url-status=live}}
The laboratory activities were mentioned in the Mitrokhin archive.
Chronology
- 1921: First poison laboratory within the Soviet secret services was established under the name "Special Office". It was operated by the Cheka and headed by professor of medicine Ignatii Kazakov, according to Pavel Sudoplatov.Vadim J. Birstein. The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press (2004) {{ISBN|0-8133-4280-5}}.
- 1926: The laboratory was under the supervision of Genrikh Yagoda, a deputy of OGPU chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, who became NKVD chief in 1934 after Menzhinsky's death.
- February 20, 1939: It becomes Laboratory 1 headed by Grigory Mairanovsky. The laboratory was under the direct supervision of NKVD director Lavrenty Beria and his deputy Vsevolod Merkulov from 1939 to March 1953. Victims included the American Isaiah Oggins.
- March 14, 1953: It was renamed to Laboratory 12. V. Naumov became the newly appointed head. Lavrenty Beria and Vsevolod Merkulov were executed after Stalin's death. Immediate NKVD supervisor of the laboratory, Pavel Sudoplatov, received a long term in prison.
- 1978: Expanded into the Central Investigation Institute for Special Technology within the First Chief Directorate of the KGB.
- Since 1991: Several laboratories of the SVR (headquartered in Yasenevo near Moscow) were responsible for the "creation of biological and toxin weapons for clandestine operations in the West".Alexander Kouzminov Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West, Greenhill Books, 2006, {{ISBN|1-85367-646-2}} {{cite web |url=http://www.calitreview.com/Interviews/int_kouzminov_8013.htm |title=Interview: Alexander Kouzminov, Author of Biological Espionage |access-date=2007-12-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050425151231/http://www.calitreview.com/Interviews/int_kouzminov_8013.htm |archive-date=2005-04-25 }}.
Human experimentation
Mairanovsky and his colleagues tested a variety of lethal poisons on prisoners from the Gulags, including mustard gas, ricin, digitoxin, curare, cyanide, and many others.Andrew Meier. 2008. The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service, W. W. Norton. The objective of these experiments was to identify a tasteless, odorless chemical that could not be detected {{lang|la|post-mortem}}. Candidate poisons were administered to the victims along with a meal or drink, disguised as "medication".
Ultimately, a preparation meeting the desired criteria was developed and referred to as C-2 or K-2 (carbylamine choline chloride).Kristen Laurence, [https://books.google.com/books?id=DXiJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT43 The Murder Stories]{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}Boris Volodarsky, [https://books.google.com/books?id=GFd-AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34 The KGB's Poison Factory], page 34. According to witness testimonies, the victims experienced physical changes, such as a rapid weakening and diminishment in height, followed by a calm and silent demeanor, culminating in death within 15 minutes. Mairanovsky intentionally brought individuals of various physical conditions and ages into the laboratory to comprehensively understand the effects of each poison.
Pavel Sudoplatov and Nahum Eitingon only approved specialized equipment (namely, poisons) if it had been tested on "humans", as revealed in the testimony of Mikhail Filimonov. Vsevolod Merkulov stated that these experiments received authorization from NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria. Following Stalin's death and Beria's subsequent arrest, Beria attested on August 28, 1953, that "I gave orders to Mairanovsky to conduct experiments on people sentenced to the highest measure of punishment, but it was not my idea".
In addition to human experimentation, Mairanovsky personally executed people with poisons, under the supervision of Sudoplatov.[http://grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Ukraine/m.81346.html History of Soviet poisonings (Russian)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090319080010/http://grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Ukraine/m.81346.html |date=March 19, 2009 }} by Boris Sokolov grani.ru
Prominent victims
- 1930: The leader of the Russian All-Military Union, general Alexander Kutepov, was drugged and kidnapped in Paris and died from a heart attack due to an overdose of the administered drug.
- 1936: Nestor Lakoba, Abkhaz Communist leader
- 1937: One of the leaders of the White movement and head of the Russian All-Military Union, Russian general Evgenii Miller, was drugged and kidnapped in Paris and later executed in Russia.
- 1938: Abram Slutsky (17 February 1938)
- 1940: Nikolai Koltsov, famous Russian biologist
- 1947: Cy Oggins was taken to Laboratory Number One (the "Kamera"), where Grigory Mairanovsky injected him with curare, which takes 10 to 15 minutes to kill
{{cite book
| last = Meier
| first = Andrew
| title = The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service
| publisher = W. W. Norton
| date = August 11, 2008
| pages = [https://archive.org/details/lostspyamericani00meie/page/273 273–288]
| isbn = 978-0-393-06097-3
| url = https://archive.org/details/lostspyamericani00meie/page/273
}}
- 1947: Archbishop Theodore Romzha of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was killed by injection of curare provided by Mairanovsky and administered by a medical nurse who was a Ministry for State Security agent.
- 1971: Nobel prize laureate and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was poisoned with what was later determined to be ricin. Solzhenitsyn survived the attempt.{{Cite book| publisher = Praeger| isbn = 978-0-313-38746-3| last = Vaksberg| first = Arkadiĭ| title = Toxic Politics: The Secret History of the Kremlin's Poison Laboratory--from the Special Cabinet to the Death of Litvinenko| location = Santa Barbara, Calif| date = 2011|pages=130–131}}{{Cite book| edition = Rev. and updated| publisher = Ignatius Press| isbn = 978-1-58617-496-5| last = Pearce| first = Joseph| title = Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile| location = San Francisco| date = 2011|page=57}}
- 1978: Dissident Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov was assassinated in London using a tiny pellet from an umbrella gun poisoned with ricin; the necessary equipment was prepared in this laboratory.Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), {{ISBN|0-14-028487-7}} In a Discovery Channel television program about his illustrated book of espionage equipment called The Ultimate Spy, espionage historian H. Keith Melton indicates that once the Bulgarian secret service had decided to kill Markov, KGB specialists from the Laboratory gave the Bulgarians a choice between two KGB tools that could be provided for the task: either a poisonous topical gelatin to be smeared on Markov, or an instrument to administer a poison pellet, as was eventually done.
- 1979: Attempted poisoning of the second President of Afghanistan Hafizullah Amin on December 13, 1979. Department 8 of KGB succeeded in infiltrating the illegal agent Mitalin Talybov (codenamed SABIR) as a chef of Amin's presidential palace. However, Amin switched his food and drink as if he expected to be poisoned, so his son-in-law became seriously ill and, ironically, was flown to a hospital in Moscow.Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages {{ISBN|0-465-00311-7}}
Alleged victims
- Russian writer Maxim Gorky and his son Max Peshkov. During the Trial of the Twenty-One in 1938, NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda admitted that he poisoned Gorky and his son and unsuccessfully tried to poison his own deputy (and eventual successor) Nikolai Yezhov. The attempted poisoning of Yezhov was later officially dismissed as falsification, but Vyacheslav Molotov believed that the poisoning accusations were true. Yagoda was never officially rehabilitated (recognized as an innocent victim of political repressions) by Soviet authorities.
- Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Russian historians Anton Antonov-Ovseenko and Edvard Radzinsky believe that Stalin was poisoned by associates of NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria, based on the interviews of a former Stalin bodyguard and numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence. Stalin planned to dismiss and execute Molotov and other senior members of the Soviet regime in 1953.Edvard Radzinsky Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives (1997) {{ISBN|0-385-47954-9}} According to Radzinsky, Stalin was poisoned by Khrustalev, a senior bodyguard briefly mentioned in the memoirs of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter.Svetlana Alliluyeva Twenty Letters To A Friend (autobiography, published 1967, London, written 1963) {{ISBN|0-06-010099-0}}
- Georgi Dimitrov, the first Communist leader of Bulgaria, abruptly fell ill in 1949 and died in a Moscow hospital. According to some historians, Dimitrov was poisoned by the Soviet authorities on the orders of Stalin, due in part to his support for the proposed Balkan Federation.
- Nikolai Khokhlov, a KGB defector who survived a thallium poisoning attempt in Frankfurt in 1957.
;Alleged FSB victims
- Lechi Ismailov, a Chechen rebel commander sentenced in Russia for nine years in prison died in September 2002 after an unsuccessful attempt to recruit him as an informer by FSB. Shortly after being transferred from the Lefortovo prison to a regular prison, he had a "farewell" cup of tea with the FSB officer after which fell fatally ill, lost his hair and died shortly after.
- Roman Tsepov, a Russian businessman close to Vladimir Putin and Tambov Gang circles.{{Cite book|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litvinenko-and-the-most-radioactive-towel-in-history|title=Alexander Litvinenko and the most radioactive towel in history|last=Harding|first=Luke|date=2016-03-06|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|access-date=2016-03-12|archive-date=August 19, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230819194541/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litvinenko-and-the-most-radioactive-towel-in-history|url-status=live}}{{cite book | title=A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia's War with the West | publisher=Guardian Faber Publishing | author=Harding, Luke | year=2016 | isbn=978-1783350933}}
- Amir Khattab, who was poisoned by a "a fast-acting nerve agent, possibly sarin or a derivative" transferred on a letter delivered by an FSB-recruited courier.{{cite journal|url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsp/bulletin/cbwcb56.pdf|title=The chemical weapons convention and OPCW: the challenges of the 21st century|author=Ian R Kenyon|date=June 2002|journal=The CBW Conventions Bulletin|publisher=Harvard Sussex Program on CBW Armament and Arms Limitation|issue=56|page=47|access-date=March 29, 2016|archive-date=September 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924032450/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsp/bulletin/cbwcb56.pdf|url-status=live}}
- Yuri Shchekochikhin, a Russian journalist for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Shchekochikhin investigated apartment bombings allegedly directed by the Russian secret services and the Three Whales Corruption Scandal which involved high-ranking FSB. Shchekochikhin died from a fast and mysterious disease shortly before his departure to the US to testify before FBI investigators. His medical documentation was classified as "state secret" by Russian authorities.
- Journalist Anna Politkovskaya. During the Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004 and while on her way to Beslan to help in negotiations with the hostage-takers, Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness after drinking tea given to her by an Aeroflot flight attendant.{{cite web|url=http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/61071|title=Russian journalist reportedly poisoned en route to hostage negotiations|publisher=IFEX|date=2004-09-03|access-date=2006-10-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070129030454/http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/61071|archive-date=January 29, 2007|url-status=dead}} She survived. The drug was allegedly prepared in the FSB poison facility.{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/21/russia.features11 |title=Different name, same tactics: How the FSB inherited the KGB's legacy |date=20 November 2006 |first=Martin |last=Sixsmith |work=The Guardian}}{{Cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-russian-tea-poisoning-20200820-6gweyb65srgffi7hk4kb6vulne-story.html |title=Toxic tea: Multiple Russian opponents of Vladimir Putin have been struck by poison |date=20 August 2020 |work=Chicago Tribune |access-date=August 30, 2020 |archive-date=August 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200822211018/https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-russian-tea-poisoning-20200820-6gweyb65srgffi7hk4kb6vulne-story.html |url-status=live }} Politkovskaya was later shot to death in her Moscow apartment building in 2006.
- Former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. He was poisoned in a sushi bar in London in 2006. Traces of polonium-210 were found in his body. In a farewell letter, Litvinenko accused President Vladimir Putin of being behind the attack on his life. Litvinenko was critical of the Putin regime and accused the FSB of being behind the 1999 attacks in Russia. He died on 23 November 2006.
- Viktor Kalashnikov, a freelance journalist and former KGB colonel, and his wife Marina Kalashnikova. In December 2010, the Charité hospital in Berlin discovered that they had been poisoned with mercury. Viktor Kalashnikov claimed it was the work of the FSB.{{cite news |first=Nick |last=Allen |work=The Daily Telegraph |title=German inquiry into 'poisoning' of Russian dissidents |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8227644/German-inquiry-into-poisoning-of-Russian-dissidents.html |date=27 December 2010 |access-date=28 December 2010 |archive-date=December 29, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229231114/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8227644/German-inquiry-into-poisoning-of-Russian-dissidents.html |url-status=live }}
- Karinna Moskalenko, a human rights lawyer who defended Litvinenko and other anti-Putin dissidents in court. She fell ill from mercury poisoning in October 2008, just prior to a hearing regarding the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. Although initially alleged to be an attempt on her life, it was found by French police to be the result of a barometer broken in the car by the previous owner.{{cite news|title=Mercury in lawyer's car not suspicious, French police say |newspaper=International Herald Tribune |date=23 October 2008 |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/23/europe/EU-France-Russian-Lawyer.php |access-date=2008-10-24 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090516184402/http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/23/europe/EU-France-Russian-Lawyer.php |archive-date=16 May 2009 }} at Webcite
- Viktor Yushchenko, the third President of Ukraine. Yuschenko was found to have been poisoned with TCDD dioxin during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election campaign. In 2009, he accused Russia of shielding a number of witnesses to his poisoning, and called on the Russian government to turn them over.{{cite web |url= http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/49610 |title= Yushchenko to Russia: Hand over witnesses |publisher= Kyiv Post |date= 2009-10-28 |access-date= 2010-02-11 |archive-date= February 26, 2022 |archive-url= https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220226/http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/49610 |url-status= live }}
- Pyotr Verzilov, spokesman for the protest band Pussy Riot. Verzilov was admitted to a hospital in Moscow in September 2018, before being transferred to the Charité in Berlin. The German doctors believed it was "highly probable" that Verzilov was poisoned.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/18/highly-probable-pussy-riot-member-poisoned-say-german-doctors-pyotr-verzilov |title='Highly probable' Pussy Riot activist was poisoned, say German doctors |newspaper=The Guardian |first1=Jess |last1=Smee |first2=Luke |last2=Harding |date=18 September 2018 |access-date=September 3, 2020 |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109011256/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/18/highly-probable-pussy-riot-member-poisoned-say-german-doctors-pyotr-verzilov |url-status=live }}
- Vladimir Kara-Murza, opposition politician. Kara-Murza suddenly fell ill during a meeting in Moscow in May 2015, and was in a coma for more than a month. Coming on the heels of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow that February, his family suspected he had been poisoned.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33009049|title=Russian activist's sudden illness fuels poisoning suspicion|work=BBC News|date=June 4, 2015|accessdate=May 5, 2022|archive-date=May 5, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505213458/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33009049|url-status=live}} Kara-Murza was hospitalized again for an alleged poisoning in February 2017.{{Cite news | url=https://www.rferl.org/a/fbi-silent-on-lab-results-in-kremlin-foe-s-suspected-poisoning/29564152.html | title=RFE/RL Exclusive: FBI Silent on Lab Results in Kremlin Foe's Suspected Poisoning | newspaper=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | date=November 2018 | last1=Eckel | first1=Mike | last2=Schreck | first2=Carl | access-date=September 3, 2020 | archive-date=August 24, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200824042556/https://www.rferl.org/a/fbi-silent-on-lab-results-in-kremlin-foe-s-suspected-poisoning/29564152.html | url-status=live }}
- Sergei Skripal, former GRU officer and double agent for the British SIS, and his daughter Yulia. On 4 March 2018, the Skripals were poisoned with a Novichok agent in Salisbury, United Kingdom, where Sergei had been living since 2010.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/07/russian-spy-police-appeal-for-witnesses-as-cobra-meeting-takes-place|title=Sergei Skripal: former Russian spy poisoned with nerve gas, say police|last1=Dodd|first1=Vikram|last2=Harding|first2=Luke|last3=MacAskill|first3=Ewen|date=8 March 2018|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=8 March 2018|archive-date=7 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180407174131/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/07/russian-spy-police-appeal-for-witnesses-as-cobra-meeting-takes-place|url-status=live}} Both eventually recovered; in 2020, they were reported to be living under new identities in New Zealand.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12342962|title=Russian spies, lies and the British press: Are the poisoned Skripal duo living in NZ?|date=28 June 2020|access-date=1 August 2020|archive-date=27 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727051021/https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12342962|url-status=live}}
- Emilian Gebrev, Bulgarian arms dealer. Gebrev, his son, and one of his business partners were allegedly poisoned in April 2015. British investigators traveled to Bulgaria in 2019 to investigate an alleged connection between Gebrev's poisoning and that of the Skripals in England in 2018.{{Cite news|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/18/i-almost-died-arms-dealers-poisoning-may-be-linked-to-skripals|title='I almost died': arms dealer whose poisoning may be linked to Skripals'|date=February 18, 2019|newspaper=The Guardian|accessdate=May 5, 2022}}
- Alexei Navalny, anti-corruption advocate and opposition leader. Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on 20 August 2020, and placed into an induced coma at a hospital in Omsk. He was transferred to the Charité in Berlin two days later. Five laboratories certified by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed the presence of a new type of Novichok agent.{{Cite news|last=Deutsch|first=Anthony|others=Mark Potter (ed.)|date=2020-10-06|title=Chemical weapons body confirms nerve agent Novichok in Navalny's blood|work=Reuters|publication-place=Amsterdam|editor-last=Jones|editor-first=Gareth|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-navalny-chemicalweapo-idUSKBN26R2GQ|access-date=20 October 2020|archive-date=19 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019004118/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-navalny-chemicalweapo-idUSKBN26R2GQ|url-status=live}}
Planned victims
- President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito. In the late 1940s, the laboratory manufactured a powdered plague for use in a small container and where the assassin was vaccinated against plague. The device was to be used against Tito, but MGB agent Iosif Grigulevich, who had previously organized the assault on the villa of Leon Trotsky and now received the assignment to kill Tito, was recalled after the death of Joseph Stalin.
;FSB era
- The first democratically elected President of the Republic of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. According to former Deputy Director of Biopreparat Ken Alibek, this laboratory was possibly involved in the design of an undetectable chemical or biological agent to assassinate Gamsakhurdia.Ken Alibek and S. Handelman. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World - Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it. 1999. Delta (2000) {{ISBN|0-385-33496-6}} BBC News reported that some Gamsakhurdia friends believed he committed suicide, "although his widow insists that he was murdered."[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6515121.stm Reburial for Georgia ex-president] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080818055801/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6515121.stm |date=August 18, 2008 }}. The BBC News. Retrieved on April 1, 2007.
Threatened dissidents
The New York Times reported that Garry Kasparov, the chess champion and Putin opponent, drinks bottled water and eats prepared meals carried by his bodyguards.{{cite news|last1=Kramer|first1=Andrew E|title=More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremlin-silence-critics-poison.html|agency=New York Times|date=August 20, 2016|access-date=March 3, 2017|archive-date=August 21, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821014408/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremlin-silence-critics-poison.html|url-status=live}}
See also
Notes and references
{{Reflist|30em}}
Sources
- PETLIURA, KONOVALETS, BANDERA - Three Leaders of Ukrainian Liberation Movement murdered by the Order of Moscow. Ukrainian Publishers Limited. 237, Liverpool Road, London, United Kingdom. 1962. (audiobook).
- Ken Alibek and S. Handelman. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World - Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it. 1999. Delta (2000) {{ISBN|0-385-33496-6}} [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385334966/]
- Vadim J. Birstein. The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. Westview Press (2004) {{ISBN|0-8133-4280-5}}.
- Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages {{ISBN|0-465-00311-7}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20081203111036/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1625866.ece The Laboratory 12 poison plot], by Martin Sixsmith, The Sunday Times, April 8, 2007
- [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111282082770699984 The KGB's Poison Factory], by Boris Volodarsky, Wall Street Journal, 7 April 2005
- [http://grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Ukraine/m.81346.html History of Soviet poisonings (Russian)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090319080010/http://grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Ukraine/m.81346.html |date=March 19, 2009 }} by Boris Sokolov grani.ru
- [http://grani.ru/opinion/m.114754.html Organic poison (Russian)] by Vladimir Abarinov, grani.ru
- Boris Volodarsky, The KGB’s Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko (London: Frontline Books, 2009) {{ISBN|1-84832-542-8}}
- Boris Volodarsky, Assassins: The KGB's Poison Factory 10 Years On (London: Frontline Books, 2019) ISBN 978-1-52673-392-4
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