Soviet Nerve Agent Linked to Russian Politician Illness

 

Novichok is a deadly nerve agent that left Russian opposition¹ politician Alexei Navalny in a coma². It also nearly killed a former Russian spy and his daughter in 2018.

Novichok was the creation of a very secretive chemical weapons program when Russia was part of the Soviet³ Union. Here is a look at the nerve agent and its history.

How deadly is Novichok?

Novichok has been described as much deadlier than anything created by the United States. Just a few milligrams of the odorless liquid are enough to kill a person in a few minutes. The nerve agent could be watered down to the desired amount and added to food or drink. It also could be placed on clothing or other things the intended victim will touch.

In the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, a small amount was placed on the front door of his house in Salisbury, England. He and his daughter Yulia spent weeks at a local hospital in critical condition before recovering. A local woman later died after she found a bottle containing the nerve agent.

What does Russia say about Novichok poisonings?

Russia strongly denied British accusations⁴ over the poisoning of the Skripals. It accused Britain and other Western nations of using the poisoning to fuel an anti-Russian campaign.

German Chancellor⁵ Angela Merkel called Navalny's poisoning an attempted murder that aimed to silence the fiercest critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has demanded that Germany share all information leading to its announcement that Navalny was poisoned. Russia also has called for a joint⁶ investigation⁷ effort.

President Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Thursday that "there is no reason to accuse the Russian state" over the poisoning. He said that Russian doctors in Siberia found no evidence of poisoning.

Navalny was on a flight from Tomsk, in Siberia, to Moscow when he collapsed⁸. The flight returned and Navalny was taken to a hospital in Omsk, also in Siberia.

Sergei Naryshkin is the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. He said it is possible that Navalny's poisoning was carried out by Western intelligence agencies as a provocation⁹.

When was Novichok designed?

The Soviet program to design a new generation of chemical weapons was launched in the 1970s to answer the latest U.S. chemical weapons. The Soviets¹⁰ created several deadly poisons, some no less than military-grade nerve agents.

The Soviet leadership later lost interest in chemical weapons. Novichok-class nerve agents were made only in small amounts for use in laboratories. Vladimir Uglev was a top scientist in the program. He has estimated about 100 kilograms were made.

Is it possible to identify where Novichok was made?

Russian experts who have worked on the Novichok class of agents have warned it may never be possible to know where the nerve agent came from. To identify which lab manufactured a given batch¹¹ of Novichok, investigators¹² need another sample from the same batch -- an impossible requirement.

Could it fall into the wrong hands?

The main Soviet research center that created the Novichok nerve agents was in Shikhany, a town in southwestern Russia. It was one of the "closed cities" controlled by Soviet security forces. The research center also had chemical weapons storage areas and a military firing range. Nerve agents were tested there during Soviet rule.

Some Novichok-related research also was done at a research center in Moscow. It shared samples with other labs across the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States attempted to oversee¹³ the destruction of chemical weapons in Russia. Scientists involved in the program said it was possible that lab workers may have sold the nerve agents during the economic and political unrest of the 1990s.

Russia said in 2017 it completed the destruction of 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons left over from the Soviet period. At first, the Novichok nerve agents were not listed in the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international document that banned chemical weapons.

Last year, however, they were added to the list of chemicals that require special verification measures under the treaty's rules.

I'm Susan Shand.

Words in This Story

coma – n. the state of unconsciousness caused by illness or accident

odorless - adj. not having a small

intend – v. a thing that is meant to be done

batch – n. items made from the same ingredients

provocation – n. an act that one hopes will cause another to react

range – n. a place for shooting guns or rifles

verification – n. the act of proving something is true

1 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

2 coma   

n.昏迷，昏迷状态

参考例句：

• The patient rallied from the coma.病人从昏迷中苏醒过来。
• She went into a coma after swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.她吃了一整瓶安眠药后就昏迷过去了。

3 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

4 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

5 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

6 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

7 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

8 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

9 provocation   

n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因

参考例句：

• He's got a fiery temper and flares up at the slightest provocation.他是火爆性子，一点就着。
• They did not react to this provocation.他们对这一挑衅未作反应。

10 soviets   

苏维埃（Soviet的复数形式）

参考例句：

• A public challenge could provoke the Soviets to dig in. 公开挑战会促使苏联人一意孤行。
• The Soviets proposed the withdrawal of American ballistic-missile submarines from forward bases. 苏联人建议把美国的弹道导弹潜艇从前沿基地撤走。

11 batch   

n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量

参考例句：

• The first batch of cakes was burnt.第一炉蛋糕烤焦了。
• I have a batch of letters to answer.我有一批信要回复。

12 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 oversee   

vt.监督，管理

参考例句：

• Soldiers oversee the food handouts.士兵们看管着救济食品。
• Use a surveyor or architect to oversee and inspect the different stages of the work.请一位房产检视员或建筑师来监督并检查不同阶段的工作。