Vil Sultanovich Mirzayanov (Russian: Вил Султанович Мирзаянов, Tatar: Вил Солтан улы Мирзаҗанов; born 9 March 1935 in Starokangyshevo, Dyurtyulinsky District, Bashkortostan) is a Russian chemist of ethnic Tatar origin who now lives in the United States, best known for revealing secret chemical weapons experimentation in Russia.
He was head of a counter-intelligence department that performed measurements outside the chemical weapons facilities to make sure that foreign spies could not detect any traces of production.
According to expert witness testimonies prepared for the KGB by three scientists, Novichok and other related chemical agents had indeed been produced and therefore the disclosure by Mirzayanov represented high treason.
Mirzayanov was released because "not one of the formulas or names of poisonous substances in the Moscow News article was new to the Soviet press, nor were locations ... of testing sites revealed.
[11] On January 17, 2009, in an article on CNN, he published the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF TATARSTAN, adopted at a Special Meeting of the Milli Mejlis of the Tatar People on December 20, 2008.
[12] At a conference on the separation of Tatarstan from Russia, held in Ankara in the same year, Mirzayanov was elected "Prime Minister" of the "government in exile".
[13] In March 2018, after the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Mirzayanov spoke about how Russia maintained tight control over its Novichok stockpile and that the agent is too complicated for a non-state actor to have weaponized.