Vil Mirzayanov

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Sultanovich and the family name is Mirzayanov.

Vil Sultanovich Mirzayanov (

Russian chemist of ethnic Tatar origin who now lives in the United States, best known for revealing secret chemical weapons
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

Muslim clergy.[1]
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,

Novichok agent 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.[2] (A full account by Mirzayanov is available online.[3]
)

Concerned mostly with environmental contamination, Mirzayanov and his colleague

Baltimore Sun through an associated article written by veteran correspondent Will Englund.[6][7] 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.[8][2]

Exposing Russian secrets

Mirzayanov was arrested on October 22, 1992, on charges of

high treason.[9]

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."[2] According to Yevgenia Albats, "the real state secret revealed by Fyodorov and Mirzayanov was that generals had lied — and were still lying — to both the international community and their fellow citizens."[2]

Mirzayanov was released, but kept under house arrest and observation. In 1995, he relocated to the United States where he presently resides,[10] taking a position at Rutgers University in New Jersey.[7]

On October 26, 2008, Mirzayanov was elected to the Presidium of the

government in exile". In March 2010, Mirzayanov signed the "Putin Must Go" campaign.[13]

In March 2018, after the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, 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."[14] Both victims later recovered and left the hospital.[15][16] 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.[17] He added that the Russians could argue that maybe someone had synthesized them "and they could make me guilty!"[17]

See also

Lev Alexandrovich Fyodorov

References

  1. ^ State Secrets - About the Author - Biography of Dr. Vil Mirzayanov, outskirtspress.com
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-374-18104-7
    (see pages 325-328)
  3. ^ "Chemical Weapons Disarmament in Russia: Problems and Prospects; Dismantling the Soviet/Russian Chemical Weapons Complex: An Insider's View" (PDF). Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, D.C. 17 October 1995. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 24, 2015.
  4. S2CID 132183263
    .
  5. ^ Lev Fyodorov and Vil Mirzayanov, "Poisoned Politics," Moskovskiye Novosti weekly No. 39, 1992. Much of this information was published earlier in the newspaper "Top Secret" run by Artyom Borovik 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 Yevgenia Albats.
  6. ^ Will Englund (September 16, 1992). "Ex-Soviet scientist says Gorbachev's regime created new nerve gas in '91". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
  7. ^
    Washington Post
    . Retrieved March 12, 2018.
  8. ISBN 0-8133-4280-5
  9. ^ "the talk [by Mirzayanov] about binary weapons was no more than a verbal construct, an argument ex adverso, and only the MCC [Russian Military Chemical Complex] could corroborate or refute this natural assumption. By entangling V. S. Mirzayanov in investigation, the MCC confirmed the stated hypothesis, advancing it to the ranks of proven facts." Chemical Weapons in Russia: History, Ecology, Politics www.fas.org, accessed 9 October 2020
  10. ^ David Hoffman (August 16, 1998). "Wastes of War: Soviets Reportedly Built Weapon Despite Pact". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-07-20.
  11. ^ Мирзаянов Милли Мәҗлеснең Баш нәзире итеп сайланды tr. Mirzayanov was elected Prime Minister of the National Assembly, azatliq.org
  12. ^ THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF TATARSTAN, cnn.com, January 17, 2009
  13. ^ Вил Мирзаянов - биография, stuki-druki.com (Biography in Russian including some images)
  14. ABC News Online
    , 2018-03-14
  15. ^ Alistair Smout, Guy Faulconbridge (7 April 2018). "Poisoned Russian agent Sergei Skripal recovering rapidly, hospital says". Reuters. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  16. ^ Nathoo, Leila (18 May 2018). "Ex-spy Sergei Skripal discharged after poisoning". BBC News. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  17. ^ a b It's The Russians, Says Chemist Who Uncovered Existence Of 'Novichok'. NDTV. 14 March 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.

General

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