This book focuses on Biopreparat, the Soviet agency created in 1974, which spearheaded the largest and most sophisticated biological warfare programme the world has ever seen. At its height, Biopreparat employed more than 30,000 personnel and incorporated an enormous network embracing military-focused research institutes, design centres, biowarfare pilot facilities and dual-use production plants. The secret network pursued major offensive R&D programmes, which sought to use genetic engineering techniques to create microbial strains resistant to antibiotics and with wholly new and unexpected pathogenic properties. During the mid-1980s, Biopreparat increased in size and political importance and also emerged as a major civil biopharmaceutical player in the USSR. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, an acute struggle for control of Biopreparat's most valuable assets took place and the network was eventually broken-up and control of its facilities transferred to a myriad of state agencies and private companies.

This book focuses upon the secret agricultural biological warfare programme codenamed Ekologiya - which was pursued by the Soviet Union from 1958 through to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. It was the largest offensive agricultural biowarfare project the world has ever seen and Soviet anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons had the capability to inflict enormous damage on Western agriculture. Beginning in the early 1970s, there was a new focus within the Soviet agricultural biowarfare programme on molecular biology and the development of genetically modified agents. A key characteristic of the Ekologiya project was the creation of mobilization production facilities. These ostensibly civil manufacturing plants incorporated capacity for production of biowarfare agents in wartime emergency. During the 1990s-2000s, the counter-proliferation efforts undertaken by the US and UK played a major role in preventing the transfer of Ekologiya scientists, technologies and pathogens to Iran and other countries of potential proliferation concern. Anthony Rimmington is a former Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham University's Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, UK. He has published widely on the civil life sciences sector in the post-Soviet states and on the Soviet Union's offensive biological warfare programme, including Stalin's Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare.

This book aims to privde a detailed survey and analysis of the most important issues in biotechnology in the Soviet Union's successor states as they each attempt to make their own painful transitions to a market economy. It examines both the impact of this branch of science on the economy as a whole and the management of biotechnology research and development (R & D) as well as production. Emphasis is placed on the alternative structures which have emerged during the transitional process. Detailed information is also provided on biotechnology research projects, joint ventures, institutes, and factories.

For the area specialist, the book is rich in useful data and analysis while its structure facilitates its use as a handbook by business people in the West and scientists looking for specific information on biotechnology in the former USSR. It will provide those with a more practical orientation with a realistic appraisal of biotechnology in the Eurasian area and some of the problems it faces.

This book focuses upon the secret agricultural biological warfare programme codenamed Ekologiya - which was pursued by the Soviet Union from 1958 through to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. It was the largest offensive agricultural biowarfare project the world has ever seen and Soviet anti-crop and anti-livestock weapons had the capability to inflict enormous damage on Western agriculture. Beginning in the early 1970s, there was a new focus within the Soviet agricultural biowarfare programme on molecular biology and the development of genetically modified agents. A key characteristic of the Ekologiya project was the creation of mobilization production facilities. These ostensibly civil manufacturing plants incorporated capacity for production of biowarfare agents in wartime emergency. During the 1990s-2000s, the counter-proliferation efforts undertaken by the US and UK played a major role in preventing the transfer of Ekologiya scientists, technologies and pathogens to Iran and other countries of potential proliferation concern. Anthony Rimmington is a former Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham University's Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, UK. He has published widely on the civil life sciences sector in the post-Soviet states and on the Soviet Union's offensive biological warfare programme, including Stalin's Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare.

Stalin's Secret Weapon is a gripping account of the early history of the globally significant Soviet biological weapons programme, including its key scientists, its secret experimental bases and the role of intelligence specialists, establishing beyond doubt that the infrastructure created by Stalin continues to form the core of Russia's current biological defence network. Anthony Rimmington has enjoyed privileged access to an array of newly available sources and materials, including declassified British Secret Intelligence Service reports. The evidence contained therein has led him to conclude that the programme, with its network of dedicated facilities and proving grounds, was far more extensive than previously considered, easily outstripping those of the major Western powers. As Rimmington reveals, many of the USSR's leading infectious disease scientists, including those focused on pneumonic plague, were recruited by the Soviet military and intelligence services. At the dark heart of this bacteriological archipelago lay Stalin, and his involvement is everywhere to be seen, from the promotion of favoured researchers to the political repression and execution of the lead biological warfare specialist, Ivan Mikhailovich Velikanov.

This book focuses on Biopreparat, the Soviet agency created in 1974, which spearheaded the largest and most sophisticated biological warfare programme the world has ever seen. At its height, Biopreparat employed more than 30,000 personnel and incorporated an enormous network embracing military-focused research institutes, design centres, biowarfare pilot facilities and dual-use production plants. The secret network pursued major offensive R&D programmes, which sought to use genetic engineering techniques to create microbial strains resistant to antibiotics and with wholly new and unexpected pathogenic properties. During the mid-1980s, Biopreparat increased in size and political importance and also emerged as a major civil biopharmaceutical player in the USSR. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, an acute struggle for control of Biopreparat's most valuable assets took place and the network was eventually broken-up and control of its facilities transferred to a myriad of state agencies and private companies.