Вил Мирзаянов - State Secrets - An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

Another expert I rejected was Yuri Karmishin, who I had also criticized in writing. He was a shady character who had spent all of his adult life working in the First Department of the Volsk branch of GOSNIIOKhT, and he also gave out passes. When I went on business trips to Shikhany, I received my passes from him. He had graduated from some kind of institute with great difficulty, and all of a sudden he was given the right to solve the expert-level problems of my case. But Karmishin didn’t have the slightest inkling about chemistry or about our specialty! How could he possibly be an expert? That is why I wrote a request to reject this secret KGB agent. Obviously, my objection was ignored. Later, after his “successful” work on the expert commission, Karmishin was appointed Deputy Director for the Regime at his institute. That meant that he was no longer was just an undercover agent; he openly became an official KGB employee.

After all of this, I was somewhat surprised to see Petr Kirpichev on the list of experts, because he was in fact a highly qualified scientist. However, it was even more amazing that he actually agreed to participate in this doubtful expertise. Later, he wrote a refusal to participate in the commission’s work, for family reasons, because his son was seriously ill.

Meanwhile, the investigation and the prosecutor’s office were energetically searching for new “evidence” of my guilt, because what they had was clearly inadequate. Mayor General Balashov urgently asked for help from the main eavesdropping service of Russia – the Federal Agency for Government Communications & Information (FAPSI). [109] Letter of General Major S.D. Balashov to Major General V.N. Markomenko to the head of the Third Main Department at the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information under the President of Russia (FAPSI). See Annex 17.

FAPSI faithfully fulfilled the request of their colleagues at the KGB and sent the transcripts of 35 intercepted transmissions about my case from the radio stations The Voice of America , Freedom , BBC , and others in many languages. I simply didn’t have the time to copy all these reports. The recordings were professional and were thoroughly edited. I couldn’t detect a single grammatical or stylistic error there, which shows that the level of radio monitoring and specialists involved was very high. As usual, the state spared nothing for total control over its citizens.

At the same time, Senior Prosecutor V. Buivolov without any requests was sending copies of published articles to Investigation Department. [110] See Annexes 18 and 19. After that, the investigation entered into entirely uncharted waters by divulging state secrets itself, with just with one goal – to indict and punish me and anyone else who chose to follow my example. I don’t know exactly why the investigators supposed it could help them, but they started making requests of GOSNIIOKhT for information about the cornerstones of the modern chemical weapons development program in the USSR. [111] Letter of the head of a section at the Department, A.A. Shabunin, to Director of GRNIIOKhT V. Petrunin, November 12, 1992 N 6/2835. Top Secret. See Annex 20.

The response was stunning. [112] Letter of Deputy Director of GRNIIOKhT A.V. Kuznetsov to the head of a section at the Investigation Department of MB RF Colonel A.A. Shabunin. November 24, 1992, N 1846 ss. Top Secret. See Annex 21. For first time in the history of Russia one of its sacred secrets was revealed: that a new chemical agent

“…was developed at GRNIIOKhT in pursuance to Resolution N 3509-123 dated April 24, 1977 by the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. and the Council of Ministers. Also, the information that Mirzayanov reveals in the same article about the development of binary weapons at GRNIIOKhT: “…binary weapons were developed based on a new chemical agent” is true. Work on the creation of a binary weapon was carried out at GRNIIOKhT, in pursuance to Resolutions N 1584-434 of December 31, 1986 and N 844—186 of October 6, 1989 by the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. and the Council of Ministers.”

My lawyer continued to actively seek permission to see all the lists of secrets, which the expert commission would be basing its work on. I was also busy writing petitions necessary for my case. In particular, I asked for a report about the fire at GOSNIIOKhT, in which almost 800 grams of Substance 33 were “lost.” Either it burned up or it was carried away into the atmosphere with the smoke. Furthermore, we wrote petitions so that we could obtain copies of documentation about the stockpiling and expenditure of chemical agents at the special warehouse of the institute, in order to get information about cases of poisoning of employees at their workplaces, in laboratories, and in experimental units. We also requested a copy of my scientific technical report with the research about the extent of successful degasification of chemical agents, and other documents.

The expertise was supposed to be carried out at the General Staff Headquarters of the Armed Forces; [113] Letter of Head of Investigation Department of MB RF Major General S.D. Balashov to Lieutenant General V.N. Zemlyanitsyn, Head of 8th Department at the General Staff Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Top Secret. See Annex 22. however, my lawyer rejected the General Staff Headquarters because it wasn’t an expert establishment. The investigator then passed a resolution rejecting Asnis’ petition, referring to an injunction of the U.S.S.R. Minister of Defense dated August 7, 1990. Ultimately the General Staff refused to participate in this investigation. [114] Letter of the acting Head of the 8th Department Colonel G.I. Funygin to Mayor General S.D. Balashov. December 8, 1992, N 317/5/836. Top Secret. See Annex 23.

Naturally, Asnis requested that we be shown the text of the injunction, but as usual, we were stonewalled with a refusal. Frankly speaking, I had no illusions about the work or the conclusions of the expert commission. While I was sure about the trustworthiness of my information, an official confirmation in the form of answers to the petition, would be additional evidence that everything written in my article was true. The investigator didn’t allow Yevgeni Chizhov and German Dmitriev, former employees of GOSNIIOKhT, to work on the expert commission under the pretext that their qualifications were allegedly not sufficient. Certainly my friends Chizhov and Dmitriev had enough knowledge to handle that job honestly and professionally. On the other hand, the KGB knew about my good relations with them, and obviously they didn’t want them to look into the matter professionally and objectively.

I didn’t quite understand why Boris Kosmynin, a former GOSNIIOKhT employee, had earned the trust of the KGB and was allowed to act as an expert. I had known Boris for a long time, and together we had founded the local organization of the Democratic Russia Movement at GOSNIIOKhT. Kosmynin was noted for his appeals that never clashed with the management of the institute; he just approached them with requests. Boris was not an advocate of any kind of concrete action, and it was often extraordinarily difficult for us (the remaining members of the Coordination Committee of the Democratic Russia Movement) to make any progress in situations when Boris almost always blocked all of our suggestions. Still, we patiently argued and tried to come to a consensus.

My lawyer Asnis suggested that famous Russian democratic figures should be members of the expert commission – such as Georgi Arbatov, Oleg Kalugin, and Peter Nikulin. He had contacted these people and asked for and received their consent before we proposed them.