The Newcomer: Novichok Agents

Initially, first-responders assumed that Skripal and his daughter had taken recreational drugs, and were experiencing particularly severe side effects. However, when emergency medical personnel and police officers who responded to the scene also began to experience difficulty breathing, it became clear that the Skripals had been the victims of something much more serious. Subsequent investigations determined that Skripal and his daughter were suffering from the effects of a nerve agent, in what appeared to have been a deliberate attempt on their lives. The Skripals weren’t the only ones affected; police officers and emergency services personnel who had been present at the scene, as well as the Skripal’s pets, all displayed similar symptoms of nerve agent exposure. Several days after the incident, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced that Skripal and his daughter appeared to have been exposed to a Novichok agent, a little-known class of nerve agents believed to have been developed by the former Soviet Union as part of its Cold War-era biological and chemical weapons programme. 

While Skripal and his daughter seemed to be the direct targets of the Novichok agent, the residual impact of the incident on the local community and businesses has been significant. Panic quickly spread when traces of the nerve agent were found at the restaurant and pub where the Skripals had dined. Both establishments were quickly closed down for decontamination procedures. Patrons who had visited during and after the Skripals’ outing were urged to wash their skin thoroughly, and even burn the clothes that they had been wearing at the time. The Maltings Shopping Centre, which the Skripals visited on the day of the attack, was closed for 11 weeks during the decontamination process. As at 31 May 2018, Zizzi restaurant and the Mill Pub remain closed for decontamination. The local Wiltshire Council is reportedly still calculating the cost of the incident, although they have stated that a few businesses in the Maltings Shopping Centre had closed permanently, due to lost income, and that overall foot traffic in the area had dropped by approximately 10 percent, even after the mall reopened. 

THE OBSCURE HISTORY OF NOVICHOK AGENTS 

The announcement that a Novichok agent had been used in the attack on the Skripals was shocking for a number of reasons. Aside from the fact that a Soviet-era chemical weapon had been deployed on UK soil to target a former member of the Russian military establishment, those within the scientific community were surprised to have such concrete evidence that Novichok agents existed at all. Until the events of 4 March 2018, Novichok agents were familiar to only to a handful of chemical weapons experts, and select members of the international intelligence community. Even among these individuals, details surrounding the rumoured chemical weapon have historically been sparse. 

Experts state that development of the compounds began in the 1970s, when Soviet chemists working on the country’s chemical and biological weapons programmes were allegedly tasked with creating deadly and undetectable nerve agents, which could potentially even thwart commonly-available safety gear of the day. Sometime between the 70s and the 90s, Soviet chemists created a series of nerve agents rumoured to be even deadlier than the VX nerve agent used to kill Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in February 2017. These compounds were collectively named Novichok; the Russian word for ‘newcomer.’ 

In 1992, Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian counter-intelligence official, became outraged at what he perceived to be his country’s hypocrisy in developing Novichok agents, as it prepared to sign the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Mirzayanov subsequently alerted Western intelligence officials to the dangers of Novichok agents. In addition, on the evening that Russia became a signatory to the CWC, Mirzayanov leaked information about the compounds’ chemical structures to a Russian newspaper. Mirzayanov’s efforts represented the first public disclosure of the existence of the compounds, and earned him a prison sentence on treason charges in Russia. 

Oddly, Mirzayanov’s disclosure seemed to embolden Russia to come clean about its development of Novichok. Not only was Mirzayanov released from prison, but his disclosure was soon followed by several casual state interviews in which politicians and scientists openly discussed Novichok agents. In two separate interviews with Novoye Vremya and the Washington Post in 1994 and 1998 respectively, Vladimir Uglev, a former Soviet Union chemist, stated that he had been part of the team that had successfully created a series of weaponised Novichok agents. Following the Skripal poisoning, Uglev again publicly confirmed the existence of Novichok agents to the international media, further adding that “only a few dozen people” alive are familiar with the chemical composition of the agents. 

HOW DO NOVICHOK AGENTS WORK? 

Despite Mirzayanov and Uglev’s admissions in the 1990s, the deadly effects of Novichok agents failed to grab the public’s attention, either in Russia, or abroad. However, the Skripal incident suddenly brought Novichok agents into the spotlight, with an added surprise: German intelligence officials had reportedly obtained a sample of a Novichok agent in 1990, and therefore knew the chemical structure of at least one Novichok compound. This information was subsequently disseminated amongst NATO member states in order to run tests and develop antidotes, with the aim of identifying the possible chemical structures of other Novichok agents. However, this information has never been released to the general public, or the scientific community. Nevertheless, state-sponsored research and patent applications in a number of Western countries has led to the broad acceptance that Novichok agents are part of the organophosphate class of nerve agents, and therefore function in a manner similar to its more famous relative, VX. 

Considerably more is known about the actions of VX, a toxic organophosphate that inhibits acetylcholinesterase (ACHE), an enzyme that is crucial for nerve function. ACHE works by removing neurotransmitters from the neuromuscular junction after they have sent their signal, thereby preventing the same signal from repeatedly being sent to the muscle. When ACHE is inhibited by VX, the neurotransmitters are not removed, and the victim experiences uncontrollable muscle spasms, particularly in the muscles that control breathing. In one of his public interviews, Uglev suggested that any one of the Novichok agents was approximately eight to 10 times more toxic than VX, and claimed that Soviet chemists had succeeded in creating both liquid and powdered versions of Novichok agents. Given that only 2.8mg of VX – a single drop - could kill the average 70kg person, the thought of what a similar amount of liquid or powdered Novichok agent could do is chilling. 

As more details began to emerge surrounding the Skripal incident, media sources reported that Skripal and his daughter appeared to have been exposed to a liquid form of the Novichok agent, after it had been smeared on the door handle of his home. However, like VX, Novichok agents are likely to degrade with time, becoming less effective with every passing year in storage. If the Russian government has indeed stockpiled Novichok agents from the Cold War era, it is likely that they may not be as deadly now as they were upon their creation. It is possible that use of a degraded Novichok agent against Skripal and his daughter may well be the reason that they are still alive.