Since 1994, the full name of the institution in Koltsovo is the State Scientific Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector", or the State Research Center of VB "Vector". It was founded in 1974, and the founder and protagonist of the project was Lev Stepanovich Sandakhchiev (1937-2006), a prominent scientist in the field of virology, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. As is usually the case, virtually any Soviet institution dealing with viruses and disease-causing bacteria should be accused by the Western media of developing offensive biological weapons.
Sinister Marburg
The Washington Post journalist David Hoffman in his book "The Dead Hand" directly points to this specificity of the work of "Vector". Hoffman's documentary was so successful in the West that it even won the Pulitzer Prize. Former Soviet scientist Kanatzhan Alibekov, together with Stephen Hendelman, writes about the biological weapons development program in the resonant book “Caution! Biological weapons". According to these authors, NPO Vector was one of the most important elements of the Soviet biological weapons development program, called Biopreparat.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and founder of "Vector" Lev Sandakhchiev
The 15th Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense was in charge of the program for creating bioweapons. It is worth noting that no one from the leadership of "Vector" ever mentioned the development of biological weapons - Lev Sandakhchiev until the end of his days denied this possibility. However, in 1999, Lieutenant General of the Medical Service Valentin Evstigneev, head of the Department for Biological Protection of the RF Ministry of Defense, in an interview with the Nuclear Control collection, said that the 15th Directorate of the RF Ministry of Defense (USSR) closed all programs for the development of offensive biological weapons only in 1992. According to him, all the work of the 15th directorate was aimed at modeling biological weapons based on intelligence from abroad. Such is the vague wording.
NPO "Vector", Koltsovo
One of the areas of work of "Vector" was the line of research and cultivation of the Marburg virus, which belongs to the deadly "family" of Ebola. The virus was named after the university city of Marburg, located near Frankfurt. It was there that in 1967 the green monkeys were brought from Central Africa, from which the nursery caretaker contracted an unknown disease. He suffered for two weeks and died. Later, several more laboratory workers died, using monkey kidney cells to grow a vaccine. The specificity of Marburg's action on a person is terrible - it provokes hemorrhages throughout the body, actually dissolving the person in his own blood. The relatives of the Marburg marburgvirus virus (filovirus) are Ebola with varieties Bundibugo, Zaire, Sudan, Tai and Reston. The names of these "creatures" were given either by the place of detection, or by the name of the laboratory in which the virus was identified. Mortality from Marburg and the like in some cases can reach 70%, but the average is about 45%. This puts them in the "emergency and emergency viruses" category.
Carefully! Biological threat
Marburg ended up in the Soviet Union approximately in 1977 and immediately came under the close supervision of scientists. It appeared in the country, of course, not naturally, but was acquired through intelligence channels, presumably in Germany. At that time, we worked with a wide range of pathogens of hemorrhagic fever - Crimean Congo virus, Junin from Argentina and Bolivian Machupo. Directly in Koltsovo, work on Marburg was headed by the candidate of medical sciences Nikolai Vasilievich Ustinov, who in 1988 conducted a series of experiments with rabbits and guinea pigs. The specificity of the experiments was a constant increase in the concentration of the injected virus and observation of the reactions of dying animals. One April day, Ustinov worked with guinea pigs in a special glove box, but did not save himself from pricking his thumb with a syringe needle. From the very beginning, the researcher had practically no chance of survival - the concentration of the Marburg virus that got into the blood was several times higher than any acceptable standards.
Part of the production and laboratory premises of "Vector" is now abandoned
As it turned out, there was no corresponding serum in "Vector", and the nearest one was in Sergiev Posad near Moscow at the Institute of Virology of the Moscow Region. In any case, it would have taken at least a day until the infected Ustinov was supplied with serum, but for Marburg it would be an eternity.
Theories about why this emergency happened vary. In one case, it is said that the medic did not fix the guinea pig before the virus was injected, and this led to the accidental injection. In the second version, the blame is placed on the laboratory assistant, who pushed Ustinov on the elbow at the moment of injecting the contents of the syringe into the skin fold of the guinea pig. The hand twitched and punctured two layers of gloves, blood oozed out on the finger. According to the third version, Nikolai Vasilyevich, together with a laboratory assistant, carried out a very complex procedure: they took blood from a guinea pig, which was infected with the Marburg virus. Inadvertently, the laboratory assistant pierced the animal with a needle from a syringe, and the same needle went through rubber gloves and scratched Ustinov's hand. Then Nikolai Ustinov acted according to the instructions - he called the dispatcher, took a shower and went to the doctors, who had time to put on protective suits. Then an isolation box in a hospital on the territory of the Vector complex and three weeks of torture.
Of course, Ustinov perfectly understood what had happened and what fatal consequences awaited him, but when he was nevertheless injected with serum from Moscow, for a while he was able to believe in a favorable outcome. The chronicle of the course of the disease was documented in detail and remained in the archives of "Vector". Two days later, the unfortunate man began to complain of nausea and headache - a toxic shock from viral metabolites developed in the body. Direct clinical signs of hemorrhagic fever appeared on the fourth day in the form of hemorrhages under the skin and in the eyeballs. It is not known if Ustinov received strong pain relievers, but he regularly passed out for several hours. At the same time, he was able to find the strength in himself and record his feelings during the course of the disease. This is undoubtedly a unique case that confirms the heroism of the researcher. Until now, nothing is known about what is in these records: they are classified. After ten days, a period of temporary relief began, the patient disappeared from vomiting and pain. But after five days, the condition deteriorated sharply - the skin became thinner, the bruises turned dark purple, and the blood began to seep out. Now Ustinov could not write, for a long time he was in an unconscious state, replaced by delirium. On April 30, Nikolai Vasilievich Ustinov died …
Part of the production and laboratory premises of "Vector" is now abandoned
In the blood samples taken from the dying person, there was a new strain of the virus, much more resistant than all others obtained in laboratory conditions. Specialists "Vector" isolated the strain in a new line, which was given the name U - in honor of the deceased researcher. The legend from the mouth of the "defector" Kanatzhan says that by 1989 the U strain of the Marburg virus was ready for testing as a biological weapon. Allegedly, Lev Sandakhchiev personally asked for permission to carry them out on the basis of the landfill in Stepnogorsk (Kazakhstan). After testing, twelve unfortunate monkeys died within three weeks, which confirmed the success of the work. By the end of 1990, research at "Vector" led in fact to the creation of biological weapons based on the Marburg virus, there were only minor improvements to achieve the required concentration for the duration of combat use.
But the coming era of devastation and lack of money put an end to this and other developments. However, the death of Nikolai Ustinov from a highly dangerous virus was not unique - in the future, several people within the walls of "Vector" put their lives and health on the altar of military biology.
