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Season Three Research Files
Episode Fifteen
3:00am-4:00am
After more than 100 nations signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972, the Soviet Union was caught violating this treaty in 1979 when a cloud of anthrax spores was accidentally released in Sverdlovsk. The Soviet government publicly blamed contaminated meat, but U.S. intelligence sources suspected the outbreak was linked to secret weapons work at a nearby army lab. Nearly 100 people died, but the numbers were obscured because of Cold War secrecy.
News of the immensity of the Soviets’ biological weapons program began to reach the West in 1989, when biologist Vladimir Pasechnik defected to Britain. He told stories of genetically altered “superplagues,” antibiotic-resistant anthrax, and long-range missiles designed to spread disease. These were later confirmed by defectors like Ken Alibek and Sergei Popov. The Soviet program was spread over dozens of facilities and involved tens of thousands of specialists. In the late 1980s and 1990s, many of these scientists became free agents with dangerous knowledge for sale.
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