Novichok

Novichok (russian: Новичо́к, lit=newcomer, novice, newbie) is a group of nerve agents, some of which are binary chemical weapons. The agents were developed at the GosNIIOKhT state chemical research institute by the Soviet Union and Russia between 1971 and 1993. Some Novichok agents are solids at standard temperature and pressure, while others are liquids. Dispersal of solid form agents is thought possible if in ultrafine powder state.

Russian scientists who developed the nerve agents claim they are the deadliest ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more potent than VX, and others up to ten times more potent than soman. As well as Russia, Novichok agents have been known to be produced in Iran.

In the 21st century, Novichok agents came to public attention after they were used to poison opponents of the Russian government, including the Skripals and two others in Amesbury, UK (2018), and Alexei Navalny (2020), but civil poisonings with this substance have been known since at least 1995.

In November 2019, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is the executive body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), added the Novichok agents to "list of controlled substances" of the CWC "in one of the first major changes to the treaty since it was agreed in the 1990s" in response to the 2018 poisonings in the UK.

Design objectives

Novichok agents were designed to achieve four objectives:

* to be undetectable using standard 1970s and 1980s NATO chemical detection equipment;
* to defeat NATO chemical protective gear;
* to be safer to handle; and
* to circumvent the Chemical Weapons Convention list of controlled precursors, classes of chemical and physical form.

Some of these agents are binary weapons, in which precursors for the nerve agents are mixed in a munition to produce the agent just prior to its use. The precursors are generally significantly less hazardous than the agents themselves, so this technique makes handling and transporting the munitions a great deal simpler. Additionally, precursors to the agents are usually much easier to stabilise than the agents themselves, so this technique also makes it possible to increase the shelf life of the agents. This has the disadvantage that careless preparation may produce a non-optimal agent. During the 1980s and 1990s, binary versions of several Soviet agents were developed and are designated as "Novichok" agents.

History and disclosure

Novichok agents were designed as part of a Soviet program codenamed Foliant. Five Novichok variants are believed to have been adapted for military use. The most versatile is A-232 (Novichok-5). Novichok agents have never been used on the battlefield. The UK government determined that a novichok agent was used in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England in March 2018. It was unanimously confirmed by four laboratories around the world, according to the OPCW. Novichok was also involved in the poisoning of a British couple in Amesbury, Wiltshire, four months later, believed to have been caused by nerve agent discarded after the Salisbury attack. The attacks led to the death of one person, left three others in a critical condition from which they recovered, and briefly hospitalised a police officer. The Russian government denies producing or researching agents "under the title Novichok". In September 2020, the German government said that opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, who was evacuated from Omsk to Berlin for treatment in late August after becoming ill during his flight, was poisoned by a Novichok agent.

Novichok has been known to most western intelligence services since the 1990s, and in 2016 Iranian chemists working at a university in Tehran synthesised five of the seven Novichok agents for analysis and produced detailed mass spectral data which was added to the OPCW's Central Analytical Database. Previously, there had been no detailed descriptions of their spectral properties in open scientific literature. A small amount of agent A-230 was also claimed to have been synthesised in the Czech Republic in 2017 for the purpose of obtaining analytical data to help defend against these novel toxic compounds.

The Soviet Union and Russia reportedly developed extremely potent fourth-generation chemical weapons from the 1970s until the early 1990s, according to a publication by two chemists, Lev Fyodorov and Vil Mirzayanov in ''Moskovskiye Novosti'' weekly in 1992. The publication appeared just on the eve of Russia's signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention. According to Mirzayanov, the Russian Military Chemical Complex (MCC) was using defence conversion money received from the West for development of a chemical warfare facility. Mirzayanov made his disclosure out of environmental concerns. He was the head of a counter-intelligence department and performed measurements outside the chemical weapons facilities to make sure that foreign spies could not detect any traces of production. To his horror, the levels of deadly substances were eighty times greater than the maximum safe concentration.

The Prosecutor-General of Russia effectively admitted the existence of Novichok agents when he brought a treason case against Mirzayanov. According to expert witness testimonies that three scientists prepared for the KGB, Novichok and other related chemical agents had indeed been produced and therefore Mirzayanov's disclosure represented high treason.

Mirzayanov was arrested on 22 October 1992 and sent to Lefortovo prison for divulging state secrets. He was released later because "not one of the formulas or names of poisonous substances in the ''Moscow News'' article was new to the Soviet press, nor were locations ... of testing sites revealed." According to Yevgenia Albats

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