HUR: Russian lab may be conducting biological weapons research on isolated island
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Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence believes Russia may be developing biological weapons at a secret facility. (Photo: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov)
A laboratory complex on Russia’s isolated Lisiy Island may
be conducting research related to biological weapons, Andrii Cherniak, a
representative of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence, told the Kyiv Post in an interview.
“The facility, located on Lisiy Island in Russia’s Tver
Oblast, officially operates as the civilian Center for Experimental Physiology.
However, according to HUR, the complex works in the interests of the Russian
Defense Ministry and is equipped to handle extremely dangerous pathogens and
chemical substances,” the outlet wrote.
The facility is guarded by Russia’s Federal Security Service
and Federal Protective Service, while air defense systems and electronic
warfare equipment have been deployed around it, the report said. The waters
surrounding the island have also reportedly been closed to visitors since 2023.
“We know that the biological laboratory complex on the
island works in the interests of the Russian Defense Ministry. It was built
back in 1938. At the time, at least officially, the facility studied animal
diseases. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the complex gradually fell
into disrepair. Buildings on the island were deteriorating, and there were no
signs of renovation work,” HUR representative Andrii Cherniak told the Kyiv
Post.
Cherniak said Russia began a large-scale reconstruction of
the complex in 2022 on the orders of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Old
buildings were demolished and replaced with modern laboratories with enhanced
safeguards for handling biological samples and chemical substances. At the same
time, the facility was designated important for “ensuring Russia’s defense
capability and security” despite its official civilian purpose.
Cherniak said the CIA had identified the facility as a
possible biological weapons development center as early as the 1950s and 1960s.
He also noted that locating such a facility on a separate island is unusual
even for work involving disease pathogens.
Cherniak said HUR believes that although the Center for
Experimental Physiology on Lisiy Island is officially subordinate to Russia’s
Federal Medical-Biological Agency, it effectively operates for the Russian
Defense Ministry, with the defense minister personally responsible for its
protection.
Cherniak also noted that the facility’s restoration
coincided with the expansion of another complex involved in biological weapons
development — the Russian Defense Ministry’s 48th Central Research Institute
near Moscow. Reconstruction of both facilities began at nearly the same time,
and funding was allocated under the same program, indicating that they are
connected.
The HUR representative noted that the Center for
Experimental Physiology officially studies diseases of domestic animals,
including brucellosis, tuberculosis and other bacterial and viral diseases. But
in May, Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency began recruiting a
laboratory assistant whose work on Lisiy Island would explicitly involve
pathogenic biological agents in Groups I-IV. Cherniak explained that under the
Russian classification, Group I includes agents that cause particularly
dangerous and deadly infections that spread easily and rapidly from person to
person and for which no means of prevention or treatment exist.
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