Few people understand the potential reach of Russia’s covert biological-weapons infrastructure better than Dr. Ken Alibek.
Now 76, Alibek was formerly the Soviet Union’s second-ranking official in Biopreparat, the sprawling germ-warfare program that operated a hidden network of laboratories researching pathogens for military use.
After defecting to the United States in 1992, he spent years revealing details of the secret operation he had once helped oversee.
Alibek is now urging close scrutiny of the unexplained death of a young employee at a Russian laboratory known for plague research.
“It’s highly suspicious,” Alibek told Our News Outlet.
Nearly 200 people are reportedly under observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region after 28-year-old laboratory employee Darya Shipilova died last week from pneumonia described as having an “unknown” cause.
Shipilova worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, a facility established in the 1930s in Shelekhov, near the city of Irkutsk.
She was admitted to hospital on September 29 and died three days later, on October 2. Russian officials have not said that plague was responsible for her illness.
Local reports later claimed that another person had died. At the same time, apparent removals of national media coverage fueled speculation that authorities might be attempting to suppress information about the incident.
Ken Alibek gave evidence to Congress on Russia’s biological-weapons programs after defecting to the United States in 1992
Laboratory employee Darya Shipilova died in Siberia from pneumonia after reports said she may have broken a test tube
Health workers have been photographed in hazmat suits in Irkutsk as officials respond to the reported plague risk
Independent media reports suggested that Shipilova may have accidentally smashed a tube containing live plague bacteria.
The disease exists in several forms, with pneumonic plague considered the most dangerous. It attacks the lungs and can pass between people through respiratory droplets.
Alibek said the situation would become especially alarming if additional people in quarantine began dying or failed to improve with conventional antibiotics. Such a pattern, he said, could indicate the presence of a highly dangerous strain resistant to treatment.
The widespread use of antibiotics since the 1940s has made plague far more manageable, helping keep fatal outbreaks largely under control.
Even so, untreated pneumonic plague can be exceptionally lethal. A 2020 review by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 98 percent of patients who received no antibiotics died, compared with 17 percent among those given treatment.
Those figures suggest that an antibiotic-resistant form of the disease could have devastating consequences.
Alibek said Russia’s history of secretly developing deadly pathogens as weapons adds another layer of concern to the current reports.
“Russia is working on biological weapons, no doubt, otherwise they wouldn’t have built such huge facilities in recent years,” Alibek said, referring to the expansion of Russian biological research sites in the years since his defection.
He warned that if the two deaths are connected to a laboratory accident, the Kremlin’s playbook of secrecy could make it difficult for the outside world to find out what really happened.
‘Definitely the information about that case is absolutely closed now,’ he said, speaking to Our News Outlet just hours before the federal television channel REN TV deleted all five of its reports about the situation.
‘I’m 100 percent sure that you wouldn’t get any new information except maybe some cover story about what really happened.’
Russia’s health watchdog says investigators found no evidence of an accident involving dangerous pathogens.
Still, authorities in Siberia have imposed extensive precautions, with hundreds of people Shipilova had come into contact with placed in quarantine and parts of the hospital where she died restricted.
Neighboring countries including Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are tightening border health controls.
If it turns out the be pneumonic plague, quarantining close contacts of the infected is crucial because the infection spreads via droplets when people cough.
Anna Popova, head of Russia’s health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, traveled to the region as officials mounted an emergency response.
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Rospotrebnadzor said samples taken from Shipilova did not reveal microorganisms linked to her work. Officials also said no laboratory accident involving dangerous pathogens has been found.
But some reports have claimed that five days before she fell ill, Shipilova accidentally broke a test tube containing Yersinia pestis – the bacterium that causes plague – while working at the institute.
The conflicting accounts have deepened the mystery.
Alibek said the Irkutsk facility sits within a much broader Soviet scientific infrastructure that had links to military research.
During the 1970s and 1980s, he said, Soviet scientists studied natural strains of disease that could have military uses.
If a pathogen appeared particularly deadly or difficult to treat, it was ultimately passed into the hands of Biopreparat, the secret organization responsible for developing the Soviet Union’s biological weapons, he said.
And plague was one of the pathogens of particular concern.
Alibek has previously described Soviet efforts to create antibiotic-resistant versions of Yersinia pestis as a weapon.
A researcher from Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute during a field trip
That history makes the current response in Irkutsk worth close attention, he said.
‘If amongst people who are quarantining, you’ll see more people dying, it can be antibiotic resistant,’ Alibek told Our News Outlet.
Though he never worked with the Shelekhov lab, he said it would doubtless have connections to the bioweapons program, and scientists there may have been modifying diseases.
And there is evidence that Russia has been pouring money into some of the same military-linked biological research facilities inherited from the Soviet era.
The US government has assessed that Russia inherited the Soviet offensive biological weapons program and has not provided evidence that it was completely dismantled. It has also accused Moscow of modernizing Soviet-era facilities that could support an offensive program.
One of the sites singled out by US officials is Sergiev Posad-6, a secretive complex northeast of Moscow with a Soviet history of biological weapons research.
Satellite images analyzed by the Washington Post showed ten new buildings being constructed there since 2022, covering more than 250,000 square feet, with several appearing to have features associated with high-containment biological laboratories.
For Alibek, the new construction marked a ‘significant expansion’ of Russia’s biological capabilities that may be larger than outsiders understand.
A worker in protective gear is filmed by residents of Shelekhov as the local hospital is partially shut following the death of a young woman
This undated photo shows lab workers at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia
The mystery has now attracted attention in Washington.
US officials have stressed that many details remain unconfirmed while urging Russia to share accurate information quickly and openly.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the US was ‘watching and monitoring’ the situation closely.
President Donald Trump went further later Monday, saying the US would help Russia if necessary.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also said it was monitoring the situation closely and that the safety and security of Americans remained its highest priority.
The scare comes as the CDC faces deep cuts and a major shake-up under the Trump administration, raising fresh questions about America’s ability to respond to a new health threat.
The agency has been hit by cuts that have reduced its workforce by around 30 percent, from about 12,700 employees to fewer than 9,000, according to figures cited in the original reporting.
A Michigan State University study published in May found widespread concern among CDC staff that the cuts and departures had weakened the agency’s ability to carry out its public health mission.
