The accident was the first major indication in the Western world that the Soviet Union had embarked upon an offensive programme aimed at the development and large-scale production of biological weapons.
It was allocated the former site of the Cherkassk-Sverdlovsk Infantry Academy in Sverdlovsk on Ulitsa Zvezdnaya, 1, and abutted the southern industrialised sector of the city.
[citation needed] In their authoritative account, Leitenberg and Zilinskas with Kuhn report that, at some point during the period 2–3 April 1979, a mass of B. anthracis spores were released from a four-story building located in Compound 19's special zone.
Russian sources indicate that the release occurred as a result of a defect in an air-handling system which carried exhaust from a spray dryer.
[6] Based on interviews with friends and families of victims, together with a study of wind data, Meselson and his investigative team conclude that the release probably took place during the day of 2 April.
A Moscow-controlled Extraordinary Commission was eventually established to manage the response and on the 22 April firemen and factory workers began hosing down buildings with solutions of chlorine.
[2] The first indication in the West of the accident in Sverdlovsk was a story which appeared in January 1980 in an obscure Frankfurt-based magazine named Possev which was published by a group of Russian emigres.
[11][12] However, the Soviet version of events was fatally undermined when, in October 1991, the Wall Street Journal sent its Moscow Bureau Chief, Peter Gumbel, to Sverdlovsk to investigate the outbreak.
After interviewing numerous families, hospital workers and doctors, he is reported to have found the Soviet version of events "riddled with inconsistencies, half-truths and plain falsehoods".
[13] This was followed by an admission in May 1992 by President Boris Yeltsin, who had been Sverdlovsk's Communist Party chief at the time of the accident, that the KGB had revealed to him that "our military development was the cause".
By visiting and questioning in their homes surviving relatives of those who had died, the investigating researchers ascertained both where the victims had been living and where they had been during daylight hours at the time during which hospital admission records indicated a possible release into the atmosphere of anthrax dust.
However, there was a very precise indication from their reported locations during working hours, that all of the victims had been directly downwind at the time of the release of the spores via aerosol.
Meselson's original contention for many years had been that the outbreak was a natural one and that the Soviet authorities were not lying when they disclaimed having an active offensive bio-warfare program, but the information uncovered in the investigation left no room for doubt.
[1] In April 1992, President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree On ensuring the implementation of international pledges in the sphere of biological weapons.
[17] Under the reforming president, there was a desire, over time, to shift the Ministry of Defence's BW institutes from military jurisdiction to work for the civil economy.
It was against this background, that at some point between 1992 and 1994, a representative from the US investment bank and stock brokerage firm Paine Webber Incorporated, held a meeting with members of Russia's Committee on Convention Problems of Chemical and Biological Weapons which was specifically focused on the potential for cooperation with Compound No.
The project eventually floundered because of the Russian military's desire to maintain the "closed" (highly restricted access) status of its biological facilities.
Under the National System of Chemical and Biological Safety/Security of the Russian Federation, funding has been provided to the Sverdlovsk institute for the renovation of two facilities for the production of antibiotics.