The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (the Chemical Weapons Convention or CWC) was approved by the U.N. General Assembly on 30 November 1992. The treaty entered into force on 29 April 1997. The aim of this work was to study the history of signing of the CWC and its key points. First attempts to develop an international agreement restricting the use of poisons and various toxic substances in hostilities have been made in the 17th century, when the 1675 Strasbourg Agreement between France and the Holy Roman Empire banned the use of poisoned bullets. During the First and Second Peace Conferences in The Hague (1899 and 1907), its participants pledged to refrain from employing «poison or poisoned arms» and from employing «arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury». The First World War showed that this ban turned out to be ineffective, and chemical weapons appeared on the battlefield. After the war, the «Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare», known as the Geneva Protocol of 1925, was developed. But this document did not ban the elaboration and the production of chemical weapons. The High Contracting Parties agreed not to use «asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices» against those States only, that acceded to the Protocol. Moreover, many States-Parties reserved their right to use chemical weapons in response to a first use by an enemy. The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) showed the ineffectiveness of the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Iraq’s massive use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops has accelerated the process of developing an international document – the CWC, the world`s first multilateral disarmament agreement, which provided for the verifiable elimination, within the prescribed time limit, of an entire class of weapons of mass destruction – chemical weapons. Nowadays 192 states have become parties to the CWC. The Russian Federation fully complied with the obligations undertaken by the CWC, the last Russian chemical munition was destroyed in September 2017.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed many questions to world health. They could be satisfactorily answered only after a thorough study. During the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic (early January 2020), it was considered a local outbreak of emergent coronavirus infection with an undetermined possibility of person-to-person transmission. However, on March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the status of the COVID-19 outbreak from epidemic to pandemic. The aim of this article was to analyze possible scenarios of the development of COVID-19 epidemics in Russia. COVID-19 infection occurs mainly in the beginning stage of the disease, when patients are not yet diagnosed. This is the fundamental difference between COVID-19 and SARS or MERS, in which patients become contagious after onset of symptoms of the disease. Based on the study of dynamics of changes in certain epidemiological characteristics, the epidemic in Russia was compared in this article with the same epidemics in China, Italy, Germany and the United States. The authors came to the conclusion, that the COVID-19 epidemic in Russia was different from the above mentioned epidemics, because the capital region (Moscow and Moscow region), the largest center of transport communications, became the epicenter of the epidemic in Russia. They considered different variants of epidemic development in Russia, depending on the intensity of ongoing anti-epidemic measures. To describe the spread of the epidemic, the SIR model (Susceptible Infected Recovered) proposed by Scottish epidemiologists W.O. Kermack and A.G. McKendrick was used. Based on the data obtained, it turned out to be possible to tentatively determine the final date of the active phase of the COVID-19 epidemic (after which it is possible to register only a limited number of cases of the disease). This date should come about 6 weeks after the completion of the plateau phase. The beginning of the plateau phase was early May 2020, and the end of the plateau phase should be mid June 2020. The estimated completion date should be August 8–25, 2020. The total number of people with a confirmed diagnosis could be 991–1122 thousand.

After the defeat of Iraqi army in Kuwait in February 1991, on April 3, the UN Security Council (UN Security Council) adopted Resolution 687, that «decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities». This UN operation was not the first forced disarmament of vanquished by victors, but it gave great impetus to the completion of the work on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, i.e. the destruction of an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. The aim of this article was to show the process of Iraqi`s chemical weapons destruction. The destruction of Iraqi chemical weapons included the formation of legal basis (United Nations Security Council Resolution 687); the establishment of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect and oversee the destruction or elimination of Iraq’s chemical weapons directly on Iraqi territory; certain measures of political, economic (UN sanctions) and military coercion (the US and the UK military operation «Desert Fox»). In summer 1991, UNSCOM formed a Destruction Advisory Panel to develop technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons, toxic substances and their precursors. Their destruction was carried out in the period October 1992 to May 1994 on the territory of the Muthanna State Establishment. Sarin, cyclosarin, tabun and their precursors were destroyed by hydrolysis in aqueous alkaline solution using a repurposed production facility. Thus 76 tons of sarin and sarin/cyclosarin mixture, as well as 40 tons of tabun were destroyed. For the sulfur mustard, the high-temperature direct burning method was used at the special factory, established under the project of the Destruction Advisory Panel. Thus were destroyed around 400 tons of liquid sulfur mustard. Chemical munitions and containers, after the extraction of poisonous agents, were destroyed using a specially developed technique of explosive ventilation and burning. 30 chemical warheads for Al-Hussein ballistic missiles, 12,8 thousand 155-mm mustard shells, 40,5 thousand 122 mm rockets for MLRS, filled with sarin/cyclosarin, were destroyed. In general, UNSCOM managed to solve the problem of chemical disarmament of Iraq. The article describes in details the Iraq’s chemical weapons destruction technologies.

The new stage of military construction makes it necessary to apply more advanced approaches to the functioning of the program management system for the development of weapons in order to adequately respond to emerging problems related to the formation, implementation and adjustment of plans to strengthen the country's defense in accordance with the current military – political and economic conditions of their implementation. The trend towards a continuous increase in the volume of processed information, strengthening of requirements to the efficiency of the formation of projects, programmes and plans of military construction, as well as the accuracy of the models and methodologies used to predict outcomes of activities in the field of defence and security of the country, determine the relevance of a comprehensive automation of the processes of substantiation of prospects of development of arms and means of radiation, chemical and biological protection, which can be provided by the introduction of modem information technologies, advanced methods of data analysis and improved scientific and methodological support into the practice of software management of weapons development. The purpose of the research is to create an information and computing complex to support decision-making on improving the armament system of radiation, chemical and biological protection on the basis of modern information computer technologies and methodological support for the justification of programs and development plans of arms and means of radiation, chemical and biological protection. The work is based on the methods of database design and development, system analysis, relational algebra, and object- oriented approach to the formation of automated systems. In the course of the research conceptual provisions were developed, that define the circuit operation, the structure and content of the database information and computing complex, organization of the automated information and analytical work in support of decision-making in development of arms and means of radiation; chemical and biological protection.

2016 was marked by the largest epizootic of anthrax among reindeer and people in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. The development of the emergency situation has led to significant economic and material losses to the region. The federal executive bodies, as well as scientific research organisations of the Russian NBC Protection Troops were attracted to the elimination of consequences of this epizootic. The aim of this work was to summarize the role of scientific research organizations of the Russian NBC Protection Troops in ensuring epidemiological and epizootic well-being of the Yamal Nenets Autonomous District during the anthrax epizootic outbreak in 2016–2018. The experts from the «48 Central Scientific Research Institute» of the Ministry of Defence together with the experts from the territorial branches of Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing and executive bodies of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District have developed a «Comprehensive Anthrax Prevention Plan for the Territory of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District for 2017–2020». This plan was dedicated to the monitoring and analyzing the epizootic situation, to the movement control, to the vaccination of people at risk and animals, as well as to the systematic control of epidemiological and epizootic well-being (sampling). Due to the implementation of these measures, an anthrax outbreak in Yamal was localized in autumn 2018. In order to monitor the situation at the sites of the epizootic in 2016, the specialists from the scientific research organisations of the Russian NBC Protection Troops carried out the selection and delivery of biological samples to the laboratory base of the «48 Central Scientific Research Institute» of the Ministry of Defence of Russia for their in-depth study. The results of VNTR typing allowed to state, that the genotype of Bacillus аnthracis isolates, that caused the anthrax epizootic outbreak in the Yamal, was not exotic for Russia. The genetic material of B. anthracis, analysed by the experts from the branch office of the «48 Central Scientific Research Institute», showed that it was identical with the B. anthracis strain genotype, obtained in 2016 in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District.

Сertain organophosphates are highly toxic and can be used as chemical warfare agents. However, some classes of organic phosphorus compounds can cause so-called delayed neurotoxicity. Since the discovery of this phenomenon in 1899, extensive research has been conducted on delayed neurotoxicity caused by organophosphates. Mass poisoning of residents of the United States and Morocco in the last century demonstrated the high danger of substances that cause neurotoxicity, and gave a powerful impetus to research into this phenomenon. In addition to delayed effects, some phosphorus compounds potentiate the action of already known chemical warfare agents, increasing their toxicity by more than 10 times. Research in this direction is conducted under the auspices of the defense departments of the United States, Canada and the Netherlands. The wide distribution of phosphorus compounds in various industries and agriculture, the long hidden period and the irreversibility of lesions caused by neurotoxic organic phosphorus compounds, cause their potential threat to the security of the Russian Federation.