How did Boris Yeltsin respond to evidence of the Soviet biological weapons program?

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin officially confirmed that the Soviet Union had violated the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) by maintaining a massive, clandestine biological weapons program.12

In response to this evidence, Yeltsin pledged to terminate the remnants of the Soviet program and, in 1992, ordered the cessation of all Russian offensive biological weapons activities. To address the risks associated with the program's dissolution—such as the potential proliferation of materials, expertise, and finished weapons—Russia collaborated with the United States and other former Soviet republics. This effort included utilizing the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to secure dangerous assets and assist thousands of former weapons scientists in transitioning to civilian careers.12

The commitment to dismantling these programs is a vital ethical imperative, as the development of biological weapons poses a catastrophic threat to humanity and violates fundamental international norms against the use of disease as a tool of warfare.23