Vil Sultanovich Mirzayanov (russian: Вил Султанович Мирзаянов, tt-Cyrl, Вил Солтан улы Мирзаҗанов; born 9 March 1935 in
Starokangyshevo
Starokangyshevo (russian: Старокангышево; ba, Иҫке Кәңгеш, ''İśke Käñgeş'') is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, rural locality (a Village#Russia, selo) in Mayadykovsky Selsoviet, Dyurtyulinsky District, Bashk ...
,
Dyurtyulinsky District
Dyurtyulinsky District (russian: Дюртюли́нский райо́н; ba, Дүртөйлө районы, ') is an administrativeConstitution of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Article 64 and municipalLaw #126-z district (raion), one of th ...
,
Bashkortostan
The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик ...
) is a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...
of ethnic
Tatar
The Tatars ()Tatar in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different
origin who now lives in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, best known for revealing secret
chemical weapon
A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...
s experimentation in Russia.
Early life
Vil Sultanovich Mirzayanov was born in a village in rural Bashkortostan, the son of the village school teacher. The Mirzayanov family is
Tatar
The Tatars ()Tatar in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different
, a Turkic ethnic minority in Russia. His father, a staunch
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, broke with a 200 year old family tradition in which the oldest sons entered the Muslim clergy. In 1953, he graduated from the Dyurtyuli Tatar School No. 1 with a silver medal.
Career
Mirzayanov was employed by the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology. He was then assigned to a secret military chemical weapons laboratory,
GosNIIOKhT
The State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology () (GosNIIOKhT) is a Russian research institute engaged in the development of chemical technologies for use in the national economy and the production of relevant goods and prod ...
() situated in
Shikhany
Shikhany (russian: Шиханы) is a town in Saratov Oblast, Russia, located north of Saratov on the right bank of the Volga River Population: . It has been a closed town since 1997, but lost this status on 1 January 2019. The town is located 2 ...
, which was developing the
Novichok agent
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 Ru ...
programme of nerve agents. He was head of a counter-intelligence department that 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 80 times greater than the maximum safe concentration.
Yevgenia Albats
Yevgenia Markovna Albats (russian: Евге́ния Ма́рковна Альба́ц, born 5 September 1958)
Concerned mostly with environmental contamination, Mirzayanov and his colleague Lev Fyodorov decided to reveal the extent of chemical weapons experimentation in Russia, which Russia used as a workaround to comply with the proposed
1990 Chemical Weapons Accord
On June 1, 1990, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the bilateral U.S.–Soviet Chemical Weapons Accord; officially known as the "Agreement on Destruction and Non-production of Chemical Weapons and on Measures to Facilita ...
and the existing
Wyoming Memorandum of Understanding
Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the sou ...
but still produce chemical-like weapons. In 1992, they published an article about the USSR and Russia's development of extremely potent fourth-generation chemical weapons from the 1970s until the early 1990s, in ''
Moskovskiye Novosti
''Moskovskiye Novosti'' (russian: Московские новости, ''Moscow News'') was a Russian-language daily newspaper in Russia relaunched in 2011. The paper - by then a 'youth-oriented' free sheet handed out at more than 850 places aro ...
'' weekly, and for safety purposes in the
Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
through an associated article written by veteran correspondent
Will Englund
William A. Englund (born March 30, 1953) is an American journalist and author. He has spent over four decades in the news business, most of those with ''The Baltimore Sun''. He is currently with ''The Washington Post.''
He completed three tours ...
. The publication appeared just on the eve of Russia's signing of the 1990 Chemical Weapons Convention. Later according to Mirzayanov, the Russian Military Chemical Complex (MCC) was using defense conversion money received from the West for development of the chemical warfare facility.Vadim J. Birstein. ''The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science.'' Westview Press (2004)
Exposing Russian secrets
Mirzayanov was arrested on October 22, 1992, on charges of
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
, brought by the Russian
military industrial complex
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
authorities — he was not allowed to know the exact charges, as they were also declared a state secret. Held in Lefortovo Prison, during the resultant court case, the existence of Novichok agents was openly admitted by Russian authorities. According to expert witness testimonies prepared for the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
by three scientists, Novichok and other related chemical agents had indeed been produced and therefore the disclosure by Mirzayanov represented
high treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
.
However, the trial collapsed. Mirzayanov was released 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
Yevgenia Markovna Albats (russian: Евге́ния Ма́рковна Альба́ц, born 5 September 1958state secret revealed by Fyodorov and Mirzayanov was that generals had lied — and were still lying — to both the international community and their fellow citizens."
Mirzayanov was released, but kept under house arrest and observation. In 1995, he relocated to the United States where he presently resides, taking a position at
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
.
On October 26, 2008, Mirzayanov was elected to the Presidium of the Milli Mejlis of the
Tatar People
The Tatars ()Tatar in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different
in exile. On January 17, 2009, in an article on
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
, he published the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF TATARSTAN, adopted at a Special Meeting of the Milli Mejlis of the Tatar People on December 20, 2008. At a conference on the separation of Tatarstan from Russia, held in Ankara in the same year, Mirzayanov was elected "Prime Minister" of the "
government in exile
A government in exile (abbreviated as GiE) is a political group that claims to be a country or semi-sovereign state's legitimate government, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile us ...
". In March 2010, Mirzayanov signed the "
Putin Must Go
"Putin Must Go" () is a Russian website and public campaign organised for the collection of signatures to an open letter demanding the resignation of President of Russia, President (formerly Prime Minister of Russia, Prime Minister) Vladimir Put ...
" campaign.
In March 2018, after the
poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
On 4 March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned in the city of Salisbury, England. According to UK sources and the Organis ...
, Mirzayanov spoke about how Russia maintained tight control over its Novichok stockpile and that the agent is too complicated for a non-state actor to have weaponized. "It's torture. It's absolutely incurable." "I never imagined even in my bad dreams that this chemical weapon, developed with my participation, would be used as terrorist weapons."Novichok nerve agent inventor says only Russia could be behind UK poison attack
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
ABC News Online
ABC News, or ABC News and Current Affairs, is a public news service produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcasting within Australia and the rest of the world, the service covers both local and world affairs.
The division of ...
'', 2018-03-14 Both victims later recovered and left the hospital. Mirzayanov said only the Russians can be behind the weapon's use in the poisoning and said he was convinced Russia carried it out as a way of intimidating opponents of President Vladimir Putin.It's The Russians, Says Chemist Who Uncovered Existence Of 'Novichok' ''NDTV''. 14 March 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018. He added that the Russians could argue that maybe someone had synthesized them "and they could make me guilty!"
See also
Lev Alexandrovich Fyodorov
Lev Alexandrovich Fyodorov (sometimes ''Fedorov''; Russian Лев Александрович Фёдоров; 10 June 1936, Moscow,- 12 August 2017) was a Russian chemist.
He was employed at the V. I. Vernadskiy Institute of Geochemistry and Anal ...
Moskovskiye Novosti
''Moskovskiye Novosti'' (russian: Московские новости, ''Moscow News'') was a Russian-language daily newspaper in Russia relaunched in 2011. The paper - by then a 'youth-oriented' free sheet handed out at more than 850 places aro ...
'' weekly No. 38, 1992 (September, 20). Much of this information was published earlier in the newspaper "Top Secret" run by
Artyom Borovik
Artyom Genrikhovich Borovik (russian: Артём Ге́нрихович Борови́к, p=ɐrˈtʲɵm ˈɡʲenrʲɪxəvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈvʲik; 13 September 1960 – 9 March 2000) was a Russian investigative journalist and media magnate. He was ...
in September 1991. However the KGB did not arrest Mirzayanov earlier due to political turmoil in Russia at this time, according to a book by