Kolokol-1

KOLOKOL-1 is an opiate-derived incapacitating agent. It takes effect very quickly, within one to three seconds, rendering its victims unconscious for two to six hours. Little else is known about this agent.

According to Lev Fyodorov, a former Soviet chemical weapons scientist who now heads the independent Council for Chemical Security in Moscow, the gas was originally manufactured in a secret KGB laboratory in Leningrad during the 1970s, and that in the subsequent decade methods of dispersing it were tested on the Moscow public without their knowledge. Furthermore, Fyodorov claimed that leaders of the failed August 201991 Communist coup intended to use the agent to recover members of the Russian parliament.

Use in the Moscow theatre siege

In 2002, Chechen terrorists took a large number of hostages in the Moscow theatre siege, and threatened to blow up the entire theatre if any attempt was made to break the siege. By the third day of the crisis, the Chechens demanded that Russian president Vladimir Putin begin withdrawing Russian troops from Chechnya, or they would begin killing hostages.

Writing in the Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, Viktor Baranets, a former Russian Defense Ministry official, stated that the Ministry of the Interior knew that any normal riot control agent, such as pepper spray or tear gas, would allow the terrorists time to harm the hostages. They decided to use the strongest agent available. The paper identified the material as a KGB-developed "psycho-chemical gas" known as "Kolokol-1", and reported that "the gas had such an influence on [Chechen siege leader Movsar] Barayev that he couldn't get up from [his] desk".

References

• Goldiner, Dane. Weir, Fred. (October 29, 2002) Gas looks like secret KGB tool New York Daily News
• Peterson, Scott. (October 29, 2002). "Gas enters counterterror arsenal". The Christian Science Monitor, WORLD; p. 1.
• "Theatre victims: Moscow siege gas is based on heroin, claim doctors". (October 29, 2002). The Independent (London), p. 2.