A Russian Defense Ministry institute is testing drugs and munitions on human subjects

Specialists at Russia’s Institute for Experimental Military Medicine of the Defense Ministry are conducting trials of munitions and medical substances on volunteer servicemen, according to an investigation by the outlet Proekt published on April 13 and summarized by Agentstvo.

According to Proekt, the institute has held exclusive authorization since 2015 to carry out research involving human subjects within the Defense Ministry system. Its director, Sergey Chepur, described this role in a 2019 article in Voyennyy Zhurnal (Military Journal), noting that some of the substances tested can affect “higher nervous activity,” making animal studies insufficient and necessitating trials on “healthy volunteer servicemen.”

Exactly what the institute’s testing program includes remains unclear. The published materials refer only in broad terms to studies involving new weapons systems and military equipment, assessments of their damaging effects, pharmacological agents designed to enhance or regulate soldiers’ performance, and protective measures against extreme or harmful conditions.

In 2018, the institute opened a 100-bed clinical research center, including intensive care, surgical, and therapeutic units. In its first year alone, researchers conducted more than 300 observations of servicemen taking part in trials of drugs, vaccines, and weapons.

Chepur spoke about one such trial at a 2023 defense conference in St. Petersburg. He said artillery munitions had been tested on volunteers to determine the type and explosive power needed “to eliminate or incapacitate enemy personnel.”

According to his account, the tests took place at a training ground where Russian and NATO-style fortifications were simulated. Researchers monitored participants’ psychophysiological and cardiovascular responses on site, collecting samples and using a specialized scale to measure how bodily functions were affected by blasts from 122 mm and 300 mm artillery at varying distances.

During the trials, volunteers experienced spikes in blood pressure — in some cases critical — along with changes to their vascular and nervous systems, and impairments to sensory and cognitive functions. The results, conference materials cited by Proekt say, could enable the use of such munitions to suppress enemy personnel “with guaranteed harm of at least a moderate level of severity.”

As Agentstvo notes, the institute is considered a key player in Russia’s ongoing chemical weapons development program. Its director, Sergey Chepur, has been in repeated contact with officers from Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU — including, according to a 2020 investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, Der Spiegel, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, during preparations for the Novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.