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

I deeply condemn any war, since I think that no wars are waged to achieve noble goals – not liberation wars, and not wars waged to bring “civilization” to people. I am against solving any problems with the help of military force, no matter whose initiative it is, because in the end innocent people die, although nobody ever asks for their opinions. For this reason, I can’t imagine, even theoretically, my people fighting the Russian people. Both peoples are still in a state of poverty and slavery, and they can’t be liberated from these problems on their own, because civilized peoples have left them far behind. Any possible conflict will only drag them backwards, which in turn will lead to their natural wasting away. Finally they will just disappear from the historical scene as has happened to many other nations…

However, when the Chechen Republic claimed independence, the behavior of the democratic public and press changed drastically! Long before the armed conflict, nobody ever thought to censure the separatist demarche of General D. Dudaev. Such “tolerance” by itself probably wasn’t that bad, because it said something about the maturation of the democratic outlook of our society. Now I am convinced that the statement of the Chechen leader was a concentrated expression of protest of a colonial people of the Russian Empire against keeping their colonial status at the end of the 20 thcentury, but it took on the form of extremism. However, nobody in the press or in the Supreme Soviet thought to speak out against the colonial nature of Russia, nobody supported its quick decolonization, and nobody suggested that negotiations with all the colonies should be started.

Then almost everybody started struggling against the Russian-Chechen war, but on the side of Dudaev. There were even some “democrats” who were sitting in the besieged palace of the rebel general, when fire from there was killing young Russian soldiers. Everybody extracted political dividends from this struggle, even the Communists, many of whom had clearly Fascist views about the non-Russian population.

For some reason, I think that most of those who censure this senseless war of annihilation are sincere, but I can’t understand why people have a double standard regarding different peoples. It looks like the Tatar people are the enemy, even if they conduct a peaceful referendum. They asked “How did they dare to do this while they oppressed us for more than 400 years?” However, from the point of view of democrats, “our” nation, which irresponsible politicians have involved in armed escapades is right and should be defended.

I am greatly sorry, but there is nothing else I can do except contemplate the source of such a double standard. I suppose the phenomenon of a defective slave mentality that subconsciously sanctions the creation of a common enemy – the Tatar – is responsible. Another point is that the Russian Nation, which agreed to relinquish control over “Kiev Russia” in the form of Ukraine, doesn’t want to understand that Kazan, that is Tatarstan, has exactly the same rights to be the master in its own republic as the Russians do in Moscow. So far the concept of equality doesn’t go any further than allowing a Tatar surgeon to operate on the Russian president’s heart and to providing the Black Sea Fleet with oil. I don’t think it is just by chance that during the past 400 years not a single Tatar has ever been Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs or has held any other important position for Russia affairs. At the same time many Jews, Ukrainians, and representatives of other nations have held these positions. Doesn’t it mean that Russians do not have a more bitter enemy than the Tatar?

In this way, the colonial status of my people is as obvious today as it was yesterday. There is no hope of overcoming slavery until my people come to terms with their never-ending habit of leaving the successors of Sheikh-Gali, [159] Boris Ischboldin, Essays on Tatar History , New Deli: New Book Society of India, Second Ed., 1965. a well known traitor to Tatar interests, at the helm of power, and gain control over the situation.

Meanwhile, Shkarin toiled away preparing to bring the indictment to its logical conclusion. The expert commission was working, and they found additional material at GOSNIIOKhT that allegedly proved my involvement with the development of binary weapons. [160] “Transcript of the Inspection, Moscow”, February 24, 1993, Investigation Department of MB RF, Case 62. Top Secret. See Annex 30. , [161] “TECHNICAL ORDER FOR THE COMPOUND PART OF THE EXPERMIENTAL DESIGN WORK OF “Substance-232” ON THE BASIS OF THE SYSTEM OF COMPONENTS”, Investigation Department of MB RF, Case 62. Top Secret. See Annex 31. Shkarin hurried over to GOSNIIOKhT to conduct the so-called personal inspection and wrote up a report with great satisfaction. He was certain that this time fortune had smiled upon him. He just forgot the saying that ultimately the person who is celebrating is somebody who has last word to say.

Of course GOSNIIOKhT immediately forwarded the document to the Chekists. However, the investigator handled these papers quite irresponsibly, because attaching this document to my case materials meant its complete declassification in the future. On the other hand, even in his wildest nightmare, Shkarin couldn’t imagine that I would dare to copy this top secret material along with other documents. It leaves no doubts regarding Gorbachev’s deceitful statements that the military presumably “were cleaning up unfinished business.” [162] In a mid-January 1996, in an interview with BBC correspondent Mark Urban, Gorbachev insisted that Russia was doing everything according to its arms control agreements with America. He literally said: “I don’t know anything about these works. Maybe military people were cleaning their tails in some way.” Transcript of “Chemical Weapons News Night,” Correspondent Mark Urban ( British Broadcasting Company : London, 16 January 1996).

Shkarin painstakingly prepared for the interrogation. He planned to produce all documents that would prove that I was informed about the development of binary weapons. This is why he summoned me on March 25, 1993, for an interrogation and produced the “Technical Order.” At that point, I was still using the tactic of not participating in the interrogations, and I didn’t read the documents, but right away I understood everything. It was all true. There was my official stamp on the document. I remembered that the senior research assistant Savkin had brought it to me and asked me to put my stamp on it. I didn’t refuse, although I wasn’t allowed to be included in that work. In spite of all his efforts, Shkarin had failed to find a list of employees allowed to work on the topic of binary weapons that included my name. The lists existed, but my name wasn’t on a single one of them. So now the captain was satisfied to some extent, although he realized that there was very little information in this paper that could be used to formulate the conclusion that I had participated in this work.

Everything in the document was so vague that only a knowledgeable insider could understand what it meant. Not even the words “binary weapon” were on the paper, not to mention the components. Evidently another attempt to interrogate my former deputy, Svyatoslav Sokolov, didn’t help to prove my direct involvement in the development of binary weapons. This is why the investigator had to compose the transcript of his interrogation as if he were interested in how informed I was on the toxic properties of the compounds. This was just funny, because the investigator had more than enough information about what I knew regarding the properties of all old and new chemical agents. However, a Chekist wouldn’t be a Chekist if he didn’t try to take anybody who read this document for a fool…