...
Lik je jedan od kreatora otrova 'Новичок' / 'Novajlija'.
Gugletov prevod.
>> ... "It was necessary to permanently deprive Russia of its secret"
Interview with Vil Mirzayanov, one of the developers of the secret poison "The Beginner" - Pavel Kanygin
POLITICS, March 15, 2018
Novaya Gazeta
For the first time at the official level, the "Novice" was talked about only after the poisoning in England of ex-colonel GRU Skripal and his daughter. On March 12, British Prime Minister Theresa May pronounced the name and stated that the substance most likely was of Russian origin. Vil Mirzayanov was one of his developers.
With the former employee of the State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GNIIOKHT), secret from the USSR, we talked on skype. 83-year-old Mirzayanov lives in New Jersey near New York. In the US, the chemist moved in 1995 under the employment program for former Soviet scientists involved in the development of weapons of mass destruction.
From the beginning of the 1970s, Mirzayanov was a member of a team of scientists who developed a nerve agent that surpassed the chemical poisons known at that time. Development and testing were carried out until the end of the 1980s and immediately in three centers of the GNIOHT - in Moscow on the Entuziastov Highway, in the branch of the Institute in the city of Shihany in the Saratov region and at the Nukus training ground in Uzbekistan. The substance was named "Beginner". According to the scientist, the lethal dose of poison is 0.01 mg per kilogram of weight and causes paralysis of the respiratory system, slows down the heartbeat, leading to death in a matter of minutes. In the late 80's, when the "Beginner" was adopted by the Soviet Army, the GNIIHT received for him the Lenin Prize, the scientist says.
The project remained secret and after the collapse of the USSR, the name of the substance was kept secret. For the first time it will become known only in 1992 from an article by Mirzoyanov in the newspaper Moskovskie Novosti. In it, a chemist criticized the government for continuing experiments with chemical weapons. After the publication of the power Mirzaianov was charged with disclosing the state secrets, the criminal case against him lasted almost two years, but was terminated by the decision of the Prosecutor General "because of the absence of corpus delicti." Mirzayanov was able to go abroad.
In 2008, he for the first time fully disclosed the formula "Novice" and told about his participation in the top-secret Soviet project in the book "State secrets: the Russian program of chemical weapons from within."
Officially, the Russian authorities still do not recognize the development of the "Novice." There is no poison in any HOV registry. And the international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) does not have methods for its recognition. However, according to Mirzayanov, after the publication of his book, the topic "Novice" was discussed at the meeting of the OPCW, but no decision was taken on it.
"The application of the" Novice "in England was a shock to me," says Vil Mirzoyanov. - I naively thought that by publishing the formula in the book, I thereby put an end to its application.
I believed that comrades from Russia would not dare use poison, which is no longer a secret.
Perhaps they thought that they could use it with impunity and no one would guess. Most likely, I think they just did not read my book.
- However, Vil Sultanovich, how could the British understand that Skripal was poisoned with this substance?
- For identification, a sample of the substance itself or its spectral characteristics is required. They can be in the "library" of a special computer, a high-resolution mass spectrometer, which analyzes and makes a conclusion. A sample can be taken from the urine of the victim, blood, many ways. But the English could quite synthesize the formula themselves, in the book I published it completely. I know that Russia now claims that the "Novice" party could have survived in the former Soviet republics, but this is nonsense. If somewhere there was a clean "Novice", he had long since disintegrated. And for the creation of its components, powerful laboratories and experienced personnel are needed, which exist only in a few countries.
- You said that Skripal and his daughter are likely to die or remain disabled for life. So, given the instantaneous action of the "Novice", the dose was not very large?
- still depends on where you got the substance - on the open site, or in the respiratory system, or right into the mouth. If the dose is less than 0.01 mg per kilogram of your weight, then you will suffer, you will not die at once.
If even less, you can even live for several years, but irreversible changes and complications will still lead to death.
I had a sad case with my friend Andrei Zheleznyakov in 1987 at the GNIOKhT. He worked on a binary version of the "Novice", when harmless individually "components" of CVD become deadly only after mixing, in fact, they must be mixed immediately before use.
So Andrey Zheleznyakov worked "under the closet" - we call this the working space in the laboratory with the air sucking and the reactor where the "Beginner" was mixed up. The gas hose he sent to the device to measure concentration, characteristics, but somehow there was a leak, possibly due to poor connection in the hose.
Andrei's eyes darkened, he immediately understood everything, immediately stepped out from under the cupboard and said: "Guys, I think I'm in trouble." The first sign of poisoning is just the miosis, the narrowing of the pupils, when the light does not pass, you see nothing, then - vomiting and convulsions.
Immediately Andrei was taken to our medical unit, the Institute had his own polyclinic, introduced an antidote. At first the management wanted to cover everything, not to report upstairs, but it got worse. From the "Highway of Enthusiasts" we reached Taganka, where Andrey fell, and after that the ambulance was sent to Sklifosovsky. All, of course, were frightened, because because of secrecy, we did not have the right to send our people to a civil clinic.
The most horrible thing is that Andrei, too, had no right to say anything to the doctors: nothing happened, no matter what he got, or the composition. They ask him: "What's the matter with you?", But you can not tell the truth.
But in the end, somehow managed to agree, like he was treated there, then sent to Leningrad, there are two institutions that deal with the problem.
After some time, Andrei was put on his feet, he returned, seemed to be nothing at first, but complications began, and five years later he died. "Novice" affects the nervous system. Irreversibly, the function of enzymes, protein groups, which transmit neural signals, is disrupted. If you do not immediately introduce an antidote, for example the same atropine, then a person can die very quickly. But even a timely antidote does not give a full recovery of functions.
- What, in your opinion, could be the dose of the Violins?
- Obviously not very high. How did they get poisoned? There is a version, as if in a car, and as if the substance could be on the steering wheel or door handle. Then on this machine, Skripal went to the bar. The problem with this version is that if he touched the product, he immediately had to start a miosis and he could not drive. It is more likely that he received the infection at the bar. Perhaps there was spray spray. With the "Novice" does not necessarily send gas to the person, although such a way is guaranteed to lead to death. It is quite imperceptible to spray it on an open area.
- You were one of those who developed the "Novice". And who was the author of the idea of creating this connection?
- The author-developer was Pyotr Kirpichev, two years ago he died in Moscow. We had good relations with him. He worked in our branch in Shihan, 120 kilometers from Saratov. They did a lot of synthesizing new poisonous substances, they had experimental installations, life was boiling. And these young guys invented a new class of CVD, the main difference of which is that the phosphorus atom will combine directly with nitrogen. Other nerve gases do not. Actually, in this connection "phosphorus-nitrogen" is the destructive force of this substance.
- Do you agree that it is called weapons of mass destruction?
- Yes. It was his appointment. Understand, then in the USSR everything was done in the name of the defense of the Motherland. Although the Motherland has never recognized that it is developing chemical weapons. Everything was absolutely secret. From the point of view of even the Soviet law, as if we were not, we were outside the legal framework. At the same time, we were told that there are terrible chemical weapons among Americans, and with the British and the French, that's why we need to have it. "We must answer fire with fire," they told us.
Gradually, I began to wonder - why do we need it? I shared with some of my friends. One comrade, Colonel, explained: they say, chemical weapons are, firstly, not weapons, but a feeder for officials. Secondly, even in battle, it is not the enemy's soldiers that suffer from it, because they, as a rule, have chemical protection, and the civilian population suffers. And I began to come to the idea that I'm participating in the functioning of a certain mafia ...
In the 1970s we built a huge Novocheboksary combine for the production of Khov-33, which is analogous to the American VX. At full capacity, 20,000 tons of material were to be produced there, in fact they produced about 5,000-8,000 tons per year.
"How much damage could that amount of chemical weapons do?"
- Nobody really thought about it at the time: they produced and produced, the more, the better, the more murderous, the better. Such was the principle. About the damage - can be calculated in this way: the lethal concentration of VX or XIV-33 is 0.05 mg per kilogram of weight; the "Novice" - 0.01 mg; in sarin - 0.2 mg. Well, we were constantly testing, analyzing the effect ...
- Animal testing?
- Yes, complex tests. First, they tested it on mice, then on rabbits and dogs. Intravenous, by airborne droplets, by spraying. And every time there is an analysis of the power of the poisonous substance. There were tests in real conditions. The substance was loaded onto the carrier, and then it was dropped somewhere, and then it was counted how many dogs were killed, rabbits. Based on the results of the Ministry of Defense, it was assessed whether it was possible to take this or that substance into service with the Soviet Army. After successful tests in Nukus, for example, the "Beginner" was adopted, it happened already in 1988.
- Is it reasonable to use "Novice" for operations of secret services?
"We did it for the army." But they knew that interest in him was shown in the KGB. They had their own powerful laboratory equipped with the most modern equipment at the time. When I was in charge of the department for countering foreign technical intelligence at the Institute, my deputy was the retired chief of this KGB laboratory. We, of course, worked under them. The KGB guys came to us, we cooperated, but they never invited us to their lab, and I did not have to know where it was even located.
- So you opposed foreign intelligence, but had nothing to do with the KGB?
- I'm a scientist, I did not do operational work.
- Vil Sultanovich, why did you decide to tell about the newcomer in 1992?
- It did not happen right away. I was impressed by perestroika, participated in demonstrations, organized a cell of the "Democratic Union" in the GNIOKhT. The KGB did not like it very much, they asked me to stop activating. And we even more tasted, arranged meetings at the institute, brought superiors to a white heat. Then I wrote an article in the newspaper "Kurants", where he accused the leadership of GNIIHT of corruption. The Ministry of Chemical Industry drove the Mercedes to the institute, and the chiefs sold them different things there, terrible things happened. For the article I was kicked out of work, and I went to the street to sell "Snickers" and jeans, I did not have anything left, I had to feed the children.
And after a while I met my colleague, who told me that in Nukus there were still trials of the "Newcomer". And this, of course, enraged me. It's like that, your mother, I'm trading here on the street, the people are suffering all around, and they are experiencing unnecessary weapons! Why, for whom !? Then I decided to write a new article, it was taken to the "Moscow News", it was published in September 1992 and was called "Poisoned Politics". There I spoke openly about the existence of the "Novice" and that the government continues to make chemical weapons while the people barely make ends meet. A month later they came for me from the state security and took me to Lefortovo. And my saga began.
I did not give up, went on a hunger strike, the Moscow News wrote another article in my support, started making noise in other publications, and 11 days later the Kalininsky court sent me from the detention center for house arrest. The passport was taken away, I could not work anywhere, it dragged on for a year and a half. The trial began, where I stated that I was not going to admit it, because it was Soviet. The judges were offended and threw me into Matrosskaya Tishina. That's when the real hype began, the world press joined, George Soros said he would stop financial assistance to Russian science if they did not let me go. And I realized that now they will definitely be released, because no one wanted to lose 400 million dollars a year because of some chemist Mirzayanov. Indeed, at the end of 1994 the Prosecutor General's Office decided to dismiss the case for lack of corpus delicti.
- After the release, you immediately decided to immigrate?
- Not right away. They did not give me a passport at first. A whole commission was sitting under the chairmanship, by the way, of Sergey Lavrov. The commission examined the cases of dissidents who were denied the issuance of the passport. And I must say thank you to Lavrov that the commission had a lot of decent people, for example, Sergei Adamovich Kovalev. They unanimously, with the exception of a representative from the state security, voted in my favor. Kovalev then told the Chekist: "Why did you stick to Mirzayanov? Chemical weapons are prohibited by law, you yourself signed the ban convention! "
As a result, in 1995 I went to the United States, in New York I was given a reception, scientists and politicians came, Lavrov arrived, although I did not say hello. But I still appreciated his role [in my case] positively. But, probably, over time people change ... My future wife, an American who was campaigning for my support, said then: "Come on, stay." And I stayed. Then I was known, and only the "Pravda" newspaper wrote ill of me.
- Vil Sultanovich, the last time you were in Russia after all in 2002?
- Yes, I came to present my book "The Challenge" in Russian. I included in it 50 pages of secret documents from my criminal file, which I copied patiently in the 92nd ... Then the publishers in fear asked me why I did not tell them that the book had secrets. So I tell them, they would never have printed it!
- Now in most Russian media you are called a traitor. How do you respond to this?
- It seems to me that in today's Russia it will be difficult for people to understand what I was guided in general [when I announced the formula "Novice"]. In the country since the 90's there have been major shifts in consciousness, I would say, under the influence of the propaganda Novice. And I can not blame those who are poisoned. My father, for example, was absolutely fanatical communist, worked as a teacher in the village. Can I blame him for something? Many people who reproach me now act in the logic of survival. They can be understood. You need to have the courage and integrity to objectively evaluate my actions. I've never betrayed or betrayed anyone, not a single person and agent. I gave out in 2008 only the "Novice" formula, so that it was finally banned to stir the guys in The Hague [at the OPCW headquarters]. But it was then absolutely indifferent to them. And that's the situation we have now. Perhaps the present misfortune will wake them up at last. My goal is peacekeeping. I always understood how monstrous is what we invented. And it was necessary to deprive Russia of this secret forever. I do not regret it at all and do not repent. Now they write me facebook face-to-face threats, and relatives are worried that revenge will follow, but I'm not honestly afraid. If the Chekists did not finish me in 1992 and in 2008, then why am I now?
- But all the same, why did you tell about the "Novice" formula only in 2008, why so much was expected?
- Good question. I will answer: because many in my environment have long argued against for security reasons. One Washington Think Tank, an analytical center, which helped me then, believed that the "Beginner" could be played by terrorists. I answered this: without knowledge, the most precise equipment and the most experienced personnel, "Novice" is simply impossible to synthesize! And if you take it, you will kill yourself. My relatives were still against it, even my wife, but I showed steadfastness and still made the publication. And I believe that I have done an important thing in my life. And if someone calls me a traitor, then let him be happy with this opinion. ... <<
...
zaharova.jpg 35.35KB
2 downloads
