Chemical security

What Russia Did With Its Soviet Chemical Weapons, and Where Else They Ended Up

On April 5, 1928, the Soviet Union signed the Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in warfare. But the treaty did't ban production, and the USSR stockpiled the weapons until 1991. Military observer Andrei Kotz provides a short history of Soviet chemical weapons, and what happened to them after the USSR collapsed.

Russia first began production of chemical weapons in 1915 during World War I, as a symmetrical response to Germany, which casually used the poison gas weapons on the battlefield on both the Western and Eastern fronts. The Czarist government speedily built three plants – in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Moscow and Kazan. In a year's time, the Imperial Russian Army amassed nearly 150,000 chemical shells, but would refrain from using them out of fears regarding their unpredictability depending on weather conditions. 

After the Bolsheviks came to power, they quickly established the so-called Chemical Service of the Red Army. The military created chemical units in all rifle and cavalry divisions and brigades, and modern chemical training was established in 1925...