Russia Could Use Smallpox as a Weapon

Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to have considered deploying chemical and biological weapons to back his Kremlin forces fighting in Ukraine, and though experts believe it’s unlikely he’d pull the trigger, Russia’s known and suspected smallpox stockpiles mean the deadly virus' potential use is never entirely off the table.

Under a 1979 World Health Organization agreement, the only remaining official live smallpox stores are kept by the CDC in Atlanta and at the VECTOR laboratory in Novosibirsk, Russia. While the then-Soviet Union agreed to stop harboring other viral stocks of the lethal disease in the 1970s, however, many fear that Russia failed to follow through on destroying its surplus samples.