Over the course of its history the soviet program is known to have weaponized and stockpiled the following eleven bio agents and to have pursued basic research on many more bacillus anthracis anthrax yersinia pestis plague francisella tularensis tularemia burkholderia mallei glanders . Russian officials claim today that the ussr never possessed an offensive biological weapons program in fact the soviet government spent billions of rubles and hard currency to fund a hugely expensive weapons program that added nothing to the countrys security this history is the first attempt to understand the broad scope of the ussrs offensive biological weapons research its inception in the 1920s its growth between 1970 and 1990 and its possible remnants in present day russia . The first major question regarding the soviet governments decision in 1972 to initiate a massive biological warfare bw program in violation of the biological weapons convention bwc is why it decided to do so there is extremely little direct information available that provides an answer there is the obvious and primary motive to develop an arsenal of biological weapons when the western powers had none there is also the evidence that senior figures in the ussr academy of sciences . 1 the soviet unions biological warfare program 1926 1972 2 beginnings of the modern soviet biological warfare program 1970 1977 3 the ussr ministry of defense facilities and the soviet biological warfare program 4 the open air testing of biological weapons by aralsk 7 on vozrozhdeniye