James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction with training & analysis

CNS Occasional Papers: #9

Dr. Serguei Popov
Senior Scientist, Hadron Corporation and
Professor of Biology, George Mason University

Dr. Alan Zelicoff's chapter "An Epidemiological Analysis of the 1971 Smallpox Outbreak in Aralsk, Kazakhstan," in Occasional Paper No. 9, The 1971 Smallpox Epidemic in Aralsk, Kazakhstan, and the Soviet Biological Warfare Program, edited by Jonathan B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas, June 2002, describes and analyzes previously unknown information on a smallpox outbreak in the former Soviet Union. Several hypotheses are carefully considered regarding the origin of this epidemic, which caused 10 cases of smallpox among the population of Aralsk city. Dr. Zelicoff concludes that the most probable origin of the epidemic was a release of aerosolized smallpox virus at the military testing ground at Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral sea. This conclusion is well substantiated and represents the first clear circumstantial evidence that the Soviet Union succeeded in weaponizing the smallpox virus as early as 1971.

The highly classified nature of the Soviet biological warfare program makes it extremely difficult to collect direct evidence about its activities. One also has to take into account the strong counterintelligence efforts undertaken by the Soviet security apparatus to provide the program with innocuous "cover stories." However, Dr. Zelicoff's conclusion as to the origin of the outbreak comes as no surprise to people who were directly involved in the Soviet bioweapons program. From personal knowledge acquired during more than 16 years of performing research at Biopreparat facilities I am well aware that a weaponized version of smallpox virus was developed in early 1970s and was tested at the Vozrozhdeniye Island field test site. The relatively high incidence of the most severe hemorrhagic form of the disease, as well as the indication of high vaccine resistance by the virus that caused the Aralsk epidemic, represent additional evidence in favor of the deliberate release of the virus. The choice of an especially virulent strain for weaponization was dictated by the military requirement to pre-select a strain of virus in laboratory conditions for superior "tactical and technical characteristics."

A new biological warfare program named "Ferment" was established in the mid-1970s; one of its primary goals was to further improve the smallpox virus weapon. Genetic manipulation of the virus was considered as the major approach to increase its virulence and ability to defeat the existing vaccine. In particular, there was a high interest in creating strains of hemorrhagic smallpox virus using the new methods of molecular biology. Evidence of this can be found in several publications by Soviet scientists. For example, they describe methodology for creating a highly hemorrhagic vaccinia virus, which then was used as a research model of smallpox virus.[1] Studies on methods to design deadlier smallpox virus strains continued with considerable success until the collapse of the Soviet Union in early 1990s. For example, one publication describes how a harmless vaccinia virus became as lethal in experimental animals as the smallpox virus in humans.[2]

In my opinion, Occasional Paper No.9 is an accurate and reliable document revealing a small part of the Soviet biological warfare program's history. A more detailed knowledge of what happened more then 30 years ago in Aralsk is required to answer the question of what we can expect from a biological weapon based on the smallpox virus and in what form such a weapon can emerge in today's environment where concerns about biological terrorism are prevalent among the public and government officials.

[1] Totmenin, A.V., Gashnikov, P.V., Shchelkunov, S.N., and Sandakhchiev, L.S., "The use of the gene responsible for formation of hemorrhage as a phenotypic marker in creating hybrid variations of vaccinia virus (in Russian). Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, vol. 305, pp. 1246-1248 (1989).
[2] Shchelkunov, S.N., et al., "Viral chimeric protein including a determinant of myelin basic protein is capable of inducing allergic encephalomyelitis in guinea pigs." Biomed. Sci., vol. 2, pp. 493-497 (1991).

Return to Occasional Paper #9.