Slava Paperno: Was there ever even just a notice published somewhere in a Soviet... Russian newspaper saying, we had a program, and now it no longer exists?
Gennadiy N. Lepeshkin:
No, that's not how it happened. That is, there was a squib published somewhere, saying that an agreement had been signed to the effect that, well this was at the time when... When Yeltsin issued decrees putting a stop to the biological weapons activity, that such research was criminalized... Then, at that time, a small amount of information did leak out about that, and that was it. But it was not broadly publicized, nothing like that.
Paperno: So, a decree was issued, which said that...
Lepeshkin: Yeltsin signed a decree halting the activity, the research, and at the same time articles were added to the Criminal Code, about the penalty... making all of that a crime, and punishing people who worked on bioweapons issues
and research and so on, that they would be prosecuted. There are specific articles, stipulating prison terms of up to ten years.