Novichok: The New Guy

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

New newcomer, I guess, is what it means. His coming out party. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:24

And I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East. Oh, Aaron, a dark, dark, dark, dark day. For me, it's really dark because my child got a 102 degree fever on Sunday night, so I'm actually down in the Fuhrer bunker, or my gym, recording it so I can escape his cries.

Jeffrey 0:47

You may want to check for nerve agents.

Aaron 0:52

I've gone underground to protect myself from Russian nerve agents. Speaking of audacity, our recording things, I mean, Jesus Christ, these people have a lot of nerve setting off nerve agents.

Jeffrey 1:02

Oh, but they're going to get away with it because they always get away with it. That's the problem, you see. We are obviously talking about what appears to quite clearly be Moscow's use of a newfangled nerve agent, one that we had heard about for quite some time, in order to poison a Russian dissident, his daughter, and I believe the third person hospitalized is a policeman who was among the first responders.

Is that correct?

Aaron 1:38

Yeah, I have Sergei Skirpal, his daughter Yulia, and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey all in the hospital. In addition to 21 other people exposed at a pub and a restaurant.

Jeffrey 1:53

Now, obviously, this is not the first time that the Russians or earlier the Soviet Union has murdered dissidents. It's actually really quite a long-running thing. We, I guess, got a break from it in the late 1990s. But throughout the Cold War, the KGB and its sister services in Eastern Europe would bump people off. There's... Georgie Markov, who was famously killed with the poison umbrella.

And then obviously in recent years, starting with the Litvinenko assassination, we've seen quite a lot of this.

Aaron 2:34

Yeah, you know, just BuzzFeed News did a fantastic article recently. Maybe we'll put it in the show notes. You know, we're linking, at least U.S. intelligence, linking 14 deaths in the U.K. to Russian intelligence. And Litvinenko seems to be tied to when the Russian Duma passed new laws that gave license to these intelligence agencies to go start whacking people abroad again.

Jeffrey 2:59

So I thought we'd talk a little bit about three different baskets of things. First, we should talk about the security challenge that's posed by Russia's campaign of targeted assassinations. Because, you know, I mean... There is a limit to what one can do about this sort of behavior. And yet I find myself closer to the Bob Gates school of thought that says we actually should take this behavior more seriously than we do.

But we should also talk about the nerve agent because it is our, I think, strongest confirmation of something that's been long rumored about Russia's chemical weapons program. And then maybe zoom out and talk a little bit about the Chemical Weapons Convention because with this event and with all the stuff we see going on in Syria, I mean, I do think it's a good opportunity to refocus this question on what was the point of banning chemical weapons and What is our strategy for dealing with these terrible things?

Aaron 4:09

Yeah, so I mean, I think we should just start by fleshing out the unique challenges, or I guess the ongoing and sustained challenges of the fact that the Russians have once again, I guess since 2006, think it's appropriate to carry out assassinations in Western capitals of, you know, I guess of Russian or non-Russian citizens.

Jeffrey 4:34

Yeah, you know, this is one of those things where the Russians seem to believe that they are perfectly entitled to murder Russian citizens, whether those are journalists at home or whether they are dissidents abroad. And I know that some people look at that behavior and say it's objectionable, but as long as it's Russians killing Russians, that there's a kind of tacit acceptance that that's on one side of the rules, and if it were Russians murdering American politicians, then it would be on the other.

But I worry that that is... You know, with any tacit agreement, you run the risk of confusion about what the nature of that tacit agreement is. And so if it were truly just the Russians murdering Russian dissidents, that's bad, and we should do something about that. But I worry about slippage. Like, you know, there was an American citizen who was a journalist who was murdered in Moscow.

He was born in New York City, but he had a Russian name and came from a Russian emigre family. Because he had a Russian name, you know, did that make the Russians think that that was, like, okay? We've got a first responder, I guess a police detective, who has been poisoned incidentally, and a much larger number of people sought treatment at the hospital.

If they kill British citizens as incidental, does that change it? No. You know, there are individuals who are rumored to have been murdered, although I'm not convinced that that's necessarily happened, who, you know, were merely mobbed up with the Russians. So they're Westerners who are implicated. But then, like, how do the Russians define who's implicated? You know, so I worry that there's a lot of conceptual slippage and that the much clearer bright line that we should be drawing is you don't get to kill citizens on our territory.

Aaron 6:49

Yeah, you know, it would happen in Turkey, too, when I was living there and continuing, you know, people from the Chechen diaspora, some of which were nasty dudes, I mean, don't get me wrong, would show up dead and were obviously in some reported Russian hits. And so it doesn't just take place in Western capitals, even though we, at least the focus of this podcast will be on it.

But, you know, I think the brazenness of this one and the, you know, material used is Just goes so far beyond the pale and poses another unique challenge. You know, I mean, all I mean, I guess you always end up dead, and in this case, they're still alive, at least, at least in the hospital. But you know, you risk spillage, you know. So you go after one person, you know, just a Russian citizen, but it actually terrorizes a city, or at least puts a city on edge and upends politics. I mean, I think that has to be out of bounds. Yeah, and I mean, I think it

Jeffrey 7:44

You know, it goes to the fundamental nature of the challenge that Putin's government poses, which is, you know, they are all about using force to coerce their neighbors because they're fundamentally domestically insecure in my view, right? And so they are all about murdering journalists in Russia. In order to maintain political control. And if journalists or dissidents then leave Russia and pose that threat from abroad, the Russians just go right after them.

And I think that's the same kind of Soviet mentality that pulled them into Eastern Europe In the Cold War, which is, you know, it's not merely enough to be suppressing people at home and killing dissidents abroad. I think then Putin also believes he has to build his security on the domination of his neighbors. So I think that this is, you know, one, this is a manifestation of the resurgence of this fundamental Soviet mindset that That there are plots and conspiracies that are designed to overthrow Putin's government.

And, you know, the reason they do these poisonings and only, like, half deny them is they just want to do things that I think they can get away with, you know? So it's little green men in Ukraine, and it's only kind of vaguely hiding the fact that they're poisoning these dissidents.

Aaron 9:14

Yeah, and in that sense, I feel like because there's, I guess, domestic uncertainty in the United States, but also in Europe and in the UK as well with Brexit, is that the stakes this time are higher than they were in 2006, you know, with the Polonium-210 incident and whatnot. Because it represents a continuation of Russian behavior, but the backdrop The response amongst the Western powers is different, and therefore I think it's really important that the Brits get this right, and that the allies, you know, the US, the French, and the Germans in particular, are in lockstep behind them, and so that the response is muscular because I don't think that this can stand, and it certainly shouldn't be allowed to fester, to use your words.

Jeffrey 10:16

Yeah, I mean, I feel like whatever response is made in terms of, you know, sanctions or seizing bank accounts, you know, or frankly trying to grab people if you get a shot at them if they leave Russia. Like, I mean, I hate to be so blunt, but this should precipitate a crisis in our relationship. Like, it's not that I'm excited about that fact.

It's not that I, like, am happy about it. But it seems to me it would be better for relations to get very cold right now than for us to establish the principle that tolerable relations are so good for us and so important to us that we're not willing to let a couple of dead Russians in London come between us and that.

I just think it'd be a terrible, terrible mistake. I mean, whatever we do, Putin should be angry about it. And feel pain.

Aaron 11:14

I mean, I am with you 100%. I mean, nothing to add. I mean, I'm just with you. I mean, I don't know what they're cooking up, obviously. I am still, you know, we're recording this on Tuesday at 1.04 p.m. President Trump and Prime Minister May are set to speak this afternoon. I really hope that there's a joint and strong response.

And I'm not, as an American whose views on Trump are forever enshrined on armscontrolwonk.com, You know, I'm still hoping that there are quiet talks and that the administration will get this right and the response will supersede politics here in the U.S. and that Trump's relationship with Putin, whatever comes out of the Mueller investigation, will not tarnish this because we have to get this one right.

Jeffrey 12:17

Yeah, I have to say I am I have no confidence that this administration is going to get this right. I mean, I am. I think that at this point, you know, for the president, the. What's the way what's the way to say this? There is an enormous amount of evidence that people around the president have inappropriate ties to Russia, or people who were around the president have had those inappropriate ties.

And it is so many people, and it is so frequent, and every time we learn something, it is so appalling, you know, that I... Tend to think that there is fire behind all that smoke. I do too. There may be individuals who have integrity in that administration, but I think there are a large number of them who do not.

And the challenge is figuring out which one is the secret Putin. Do you know this game, Secret Hitler? The card game? I do. The Trump people are playing Secret Putin, and, you know, the surprise may be that Trump is the Secret Putin.

Aaron 13:39

I'm still, I mean, again, it's Tuesday, 106. When this episode drops, things could change. Things could change for the better. Things could change for the worse. Just because of how important I think the joint response, and largely, in a way, it's not really up to us. It's up to us and the US government to amplify what the British government decides to do.

That I have, maybe I'm a little bit more, I mean, hopeful is not the right word, I guess. Well, I guess hopeful is the right word. I guess hoping is the right word. That we do things that will make life extremely uncomfortable for the Russians.

Jeffrey 14:15

But maybe we should talk about the actual Novichok, the thing that they used. The new guy. The new guy. The new old guy. Newcomer, I guess, is what it means. His coming out party? Yeah. No, you know, Novichok means newcomer.

Aaron 14:32

Oh, I actually didn't do it. That goes to show the depth of my Russian. I had no idea. Okay.

Jeffrey 14:36

Although, for some reason, I had learned it as New Guy, and I don't know enough Russian to know if Novichok really is a newcomer or that's just a polite version of New Guy. But they were the Novichok agents. And by the way, we have this guy, Vil... Mirzinov, I can't speak Russian, who was a Soviet CW scientist who managed to make his way to the U.S. after becoming disheartened with the Soviet chemical weapons program.

I guess by the time he made his way to the U.S. it was Russia. But he actually detailed... I'm surprised he's not dead, frankly. He actually detailed... These new agents, which were really, really an important part of the debate about whether or not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. Yeah. But yeah, they're terrible. It was a new generation of nerve agents, which I think Scott LaFoy off the podcast was telling us, you know, are best described as one of them was Super VX.

And I have, thanks to William Alberque, there is a Stimson Center report that has a paper by Mirzanov, sorry, someone is going to correct my Russian, called Dismantling the Soviet-Russian Chemical Weapons Complex, an Insider's View. And he talks about them in really, really great detail. And one of the things he says is, Is that the Super VX, which was Novichok 5, was five to eight times more lethal than VX, traditional VX.

Aaron 16:24

Wasn't his original leak of this to the Baltimore Sun, which at that time had an office in Moscow?

Jeffrey 16:31

I didn't know that. If you know that, you should tell me about that.

Aaron 16:34

The original leak, as best as I understand it, comes in 1992 to the Baltimore Sun. It is from Mirzapov. And it says, beginning in 1987, the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev repeatedly called for an international ban on chemical weapons and announced on several occasions that it had unilaterally stopped the production of its own, to use the Baltimore Sun's term, poison gases.

But the secret scientific research into, quote unquote, new gases never wavered. And so this is the outgrowth of that.

Jeffrey 17:09

And Mirzanov, whose name I am almost certainly butchering repeatedly, I mean, he goes into great detail, right, about the development of these agents. And we should post this link in the show notes. And big thanks to William Alberque for actually, like, remembering it and digging it up. Yeah, but his argument was that they wanted a new chemical agent in the 1980s.

And then they developed these things. And I mean, he makes the point that they're more lethal. You know, and the precursors are really quite common. And so they would be both very lethal, but also very difficult to monitor in a treaty environment, which, you know, I mean, I think he suspects that the interest was in undermining the verification regime that was at the time being negotiated.

Aaron 18:14

Right. And as you said earlier, this did come up during debates about the ratification of the CWC. As this came out in the CWC is that Nova Chokes and their precursors are not listed in schedule one of the CWC because people didn't want the formulas to become public. And according to War of Nerves, and I'm pulling this off of John Pascal's Twitter feed, is that there are more than 100 structural variants, and only a few made it to weaponization.

And so they've been around for a while and talked about, and as you mentioned, this was a big part of discussions here in the United States about whether or not to ratify the CWC.

Jeffrey 19:00

Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting at your urging. I looked at what John Kyle said during the CWC ratification debate where he obviously used the existence of these agents. As a reason not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. But interestingly, Mirzanov actually thought we should. And so Kyle Hestis says, you know, that he feels so strongly about the threat from these new agents that he supports the CWC under the mistaken impression that the treaty will eliminate these weapons.

Right, right. But I mean, I do think it ultimately... To me, at least, that's a nice frame because, you know, it is clear that at the end of the Cold War, the Soviets were developing a series of horrific chemical weapons, just in the same way that they were developing horrific biological weapons and the same way that they were developing horrific nuclear weapons.

And some of those programs stopped and others kept chugging. You know, the bioweapons program kept going.

Aaron 20:15

Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Jeffrey 20:20

And so, you know, it's not surprising to me Particularly given the conversations we've had repeatedly about the nuclear weapons side of things, that as democracy in Russia has collapsed and as Soviet patterns of thought and behavior have reasserted themselves, we get the old anthem back, we get all the crazy nuclear weapons programs, and hey, the new guy is back, right?

So they've almost certainly started producing these Novichok chemical agents again. FYI, what the hell does that say about their biological weapons program?

Aaron 20:57

I have a theory about why they used it in London. I mean, it's actually linked to the CWC. Oh, yeah? In 2017, they were declared to have destroyed all of their declared chemical weapons. And so what if they actually just kept these back as offensive weapons while they actually got rid of all their declared ones?

Jeffrey 21:19

Oh, well, I mean... Yeah, I mean, I think they only... Did they only declare or they only indicated that experimental quantities had been made, right?

Aaron 21:28

Right, and for defense.

Jeffrey 21:30

Right, so they never indicated that there were stockpiles. And, you know, admittedly, this was an experimental quantity that was used. So it doesn't necessarily prove that there are, you know, hundreds of tons of it laying around. On the other hand... Like, you kind of got to assume that there are hundreds of tons of it laying around, right?

Right, exactly. So I don't know, you know, it really, at least to me, raises the interesting question about where we are with the CWC. Since, you know, clearly the Syrians have acceded to the treaty and are not abiding by it. And are almost certainly reconstituting their program.

Aaron 22:23

I mean, the New York Times wrote about some DPRK stuff just recently.

Jeffrey 22:28

And, well, the panel of experts, right? Yeah, they were citing the panel of experts. Yeah, they were exporting corrosion-resistant equipment that would be useful in a chemical weapons production line. Although it's still pretty vague, but... You know, the Syrians are gassing people. Right.

Aaron 22:47

Whether they're reconstituting or not, they're still violating the spirit of the treaty, at least by using chlorine.

Jeffrey 22:54

And to me, it looks like they've resumed hitting people with sarin, which is just a straight violation. Absolutely. And we all assume that given the DPRK's involvement in Syria's program, going all the way back to the bunny suits, You know, the hazardous material suits that the North Koreans were exporting or tried to export to Syria for chemical weapons.

Aaron 23:18

Right. Right.

Jeffrey 23:20

You know, we all assume that that's something that the North Koreans have at least considered. And so then now we have the Russians openly... Well, and the North Koreans poisoned Kim Jong-nam with VX.

Aaron 23:37

Yeah, the Russians said, well, FVX, we're going to use something five-day time, we're powerful. Hold my beer, let me show you Super VX. Super VX.

Jeffrey 23:47

So, you know, I mean, I think it kind of gets to this question about, like, where are we with this treaty? And I, you know, I mean, I don't know how you feel, but, like, I don't... Think it's plausible. And I mean, this, you know, roughly replicates my views about nuclear weapons. It's not plausible that we're going to use in a combat situation, massive chemical weapons against the North Koreans or the Russians or the Syrians.

Because it's very hard to use them in a discriminating way. And I know that, you know, US Army chemical warfare officers will tell you that they can do it in a discriminating way. But, you know, I do think that this goes back to our fundamental problem that we have not done a good job of maintaining our alliance relationships and not done a good job about Arranging those alliance relationships so that this is a high cost thing for the Russians to do.

You know, like having chemical weapons wouldn't have deterred this. What would have deterred this is a sense that all of the NATO member states would have been outraged. And that the consequences of this act would have outweighed the paltry gains at killing off, you know, some meddlesome retiree living in London.

Aaron 25:21

That may still come. I mean, again, just going back to the way we originally framed this, I still, we have to wait until I think the British gave... Yesterday, you know, a couple-day deadline for the Russians to respond, and then they said that there would be serious consequences. That could be British understatement or British overstatement. I'm not exactly sure, you know, but I'm still not willing to give up my optimism.

But when we framed out this show, you know, the third block here about what do we think about the CWC, I just wrote one word underneath. It was like, It certainly looks grim, you know, where the norm against chemical weapons, the use of chemical weapons is just, it seems to be completely eroded. I mean, amongst, you know, what else do you call them amongst rogue states?

There's an inability to come up with a realistic punishment.

Jeffrey 26:20

Well, you know, I think the way that I look at it is norms are things that we have to continually invest in. And I think maybe we've gotten a little lazy about this. And frankly, this was always a hard norm to build. You know, that norm existed in Europe because people remembered the horror of the First World War, but that's like 100 years ago now.

But that norm never really existed outside of Europe. And so... Outside of Western Europe. And so we really, I think, had a lot of work cut out for us. And, you know, some people like Jean-Pascal Sanders did that work. But I think collectively, maybe we didn't. And so, you know, like... The Chemical Weapons Convention as a treaty, it's worth remembering, the Chemical Weapons Convention doesn't ban the use of chemical weapons.

I mean, it sort of does, but that ban really came in Geneva in the 20s.

Aaron 27:17

Exactly, yeah.

Jeffrey 27:19

And that laid the groundwork for the convention prohibiting the possession of weapons. Right. And so, you know... It's been a long time coming to build this norm. You know, things go up and things go down. I generally think that it was a good thing to put in place a, a ban on stockpiles. But, you know, maybe one of the solutions now is to be very aggressive about inspections.

Aaron 27:56

That, I tweeted that last night.

Jeffrey 27:59

Force the Russians to walk away from the treaty if they are in real violation of it. I know none of us want the treaty to collapse and none of us want the Russians to walk away, but if the Russians are in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in the way that they are in violation of the INF Treaty, again, we didn't precipitate that crisis.

They did, and I don't think we can pretend it's not happening.

Aaron 28:26

That's exactly the way I thought about it. I think it's Article 9 of the Chemical Weapons Convention, you can call for a challenge inspection. Now, there are a lot of potential downsides to that, like A, the sort of weirdness of Novichok in general that we talked about in B Block here, and two is your intel best better be accurate, otherwise you could show up to an empty building.

But the way I think about it is that you need them to say no in order to get them on the back foot to galvanize that collective response. Because I think, in addition to, and I'll say it, maybe some Russians getting dropped, is that they should be out of SWIFT or something of that level. Things that we took Iran to...

That did have an effect on the way they thought about problem sets, even if it wasn't determinative in policy, it was definitely a factor. And the Russians shouldn't get away with this without extreme punishment. So swift, I think, and using the norms that we already have in place to our advantage. These attacks are taking place really in the UK.

If you go back to the BuzzFeed report that I mentioned earlier, it's 14 linked deaths, and I don't think either you or I would be shocked if it's more. And in the initial formal British response, starting with Theresa May's speech yesterday at the House of Commons... Maybe they're doing what we advocated beforehand, which is to push the Russians back within the context of the CWC.

And I'm just going to quote her here. It's like, you know, the Russian Federation must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. What if they don't? You know, so it links together here for this sort of cross-coordinated response. What if they don't provide a full and complete declaration?

Well, I think that we should do a challenge inspection.

Jeffrey 30:26

Well, I do too. And, you know, I mean, the thing is, as you say, you have to know where to challenge. Yeah. And you need to be right. And there will be concern that you are compromising your access to the program by revealing that you know where it's happening. But without knowing the particulars, I mean, maybe it is at a really super-duper secret site, and the human source who has told us is one of a kind, and if we blow the site, this person will almost certainly be murdered.

Maybe all that exists. But if it doesn't, if it's routine, routine sources and methods, you know, like people are loudmouthed on their VK accounts or someone has defected and told us and we have a satellite image. If it's a more traditional kind of intelligence that we have about the location of the place where they're making this stuff, then I think we ought to do a challenge inspection.

Because I think the Russians will say no. Yeah, I do too. And, you know, I mean, so much of what I conceive of as the goal of our foreign policy on this stuff is about building the cohesion of our allies to confront the Russians about the shit they're doing. And so, you know... You gotta bring people along with you, and you have to persuade them, and sometimes that's push and cajole and threaten, but sometimes that's also demonstrate and show, and part of demonstrate and show is demonstrate and show that When a Russian nerve agent shows up on a dead or very sick Russian in London and you ask to go see a particular spot where you have long said they're making it and they say no, you know, I think then that makes it a lot harder for politicians who prefer to look the other way.

Aaron 32:39

Right. And I mean, I should say that the challenge inspection has never been used. Or just never been invoked. I should, I should say, and it's supposed to be within the confines of the treaty, last resort. And there is a, you know, a different clarification request, a formal procedure that, you know, has it never been used in the OPCW context?

I am looking at thetrench.org, you know, and we'll put it down there. It's, again, by Dr. Jean-Pascal Zander. So in case people in the podcast don't know who he is, it's best to go figure out who he is because he's really the man on this. And he has a nice paper up that just shows you exactly how it would work.

And at least according to this paper, he says it's never been invoked. And the Russians in theory wouldn't be able to, to stop it or at least refuse it. But they would be able to have managed access.

Jeffrey 33:32

You know, it's probably a good place to stop. We should have Jean Pascal on. Yeah, that would be good. But we don't at the moment because we're just reacting to the horrible news so quickly. How are things going over on the Slack channel? I dropped in the other day and started to make up for lost time, but holy cow, it's going nutty.

The Slack channel is going well. Dave just put up his big imagery thing on the blog, and we're currently working out with his schedule to get him on. The Slack channel to do like the big geolocation challenge and walking through all the imagery and then the imagery release on the channel and all the cool benefits for supporting us.

And it's going to be a lot of fun. So if you are interested in supporting the podcast and our research and joining the Slack channel for $5 a month or $3 a month, if you're a student, you can support us over at patreon.com slash ACW podcast. Again, that's patreon.com slash ACW podcast. All right. Aaron? Yes? Thank you for joining me, and thank you for listening.