RUSSIA is running a barbaric death lab where Vladimir Putin tests weapons on human beings and concocts potent chemicals that can kill with a single drop.
The Kremlin tyrant’s sick facility runs experiments on live people so he can improve weaponry for his war in Ukraine, new reports have revealed.
Most of the lab subjects used by Vladimir Putin are said to be ‘poor people offered a lot of money to do it’ Credit: AP
Personnel in hazmat suits in Salisbury where Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with Russian nerve agent Novichok Credit: PA
Former British officer Hamish de Bretton-Gordon OBE said it was hardly surprising the despot had sunk to such new lows.
He warned Putin simply does not care – he has already fed countless troops into his “meat grinder” frontline that has left over 1.5million Russian casualties.
De Bretton-Gordon told The Jattvibe: “The realisation that in effect Russia is using human guinea pigs to test their weapons just shows people [the] deprived and terrible regime Putin is running.
“Russia, if they think they can get the best tests by using humans, they seem to be pretty happy to do it.
“The value of life in Russia is not how we understand it in the UK and the West.”
The State Research Institute of Military Medicine is a facility which aims to identify the most effective artillery “to destroy or disable enemy manpower”, independent Russian media outlet Proekt reported.
It is the only branch of Russia’s military authorised to carry out experiments on humans.
In its first year of operation, the centre documented over 300 cases of personnel taking part in tests of weapons, medications, and vaccines, reports claim.
A Russian strike on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv Credit: East2West
Dawn Sturgess, 44, was killed after coming into contact with Novichok brought to the UK by Russian spies Credit: Social Media – Refer to Source
De Bretton-Gordon added most of the lab subjects used by Putin are “poor people who are offered a lot of money to do it”.
“The people who would be involved in these experiments would be the poorest, the most vulnerable,” the expert said.
“We know the majority of the 1.5million casualties so far are actually ethnic Russians from the east of Russia and prisoners who are offered a way out or offered money to do this.
“It is not dissimilar to the Nazi time where the Nazis considered somepeople of less value than others and were quite happy to expend them.”
On Monday, the UK sanctioned seven Russian scientists and two research institutes linked to the development of the Novichok nerve agent and Epibatidine.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said she had targeted those involved in making the chemical used in the Salisbury attack, which killed 44-year-old Brit mum Dawn Sturgess and injured four others.
Dawn died after coming into contact with the poison which had been used in an attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a former Soviet spy and defector, and his daughter Yulia in 2018.
Russian spies, known as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were charged for the Salisbury poisonings in 2021. Their real names are Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison colony in 2024 Credit: AFP
The Kremlin critic was killed by the deadly toxin Epibatidine Credit: AFP
Makers of the Epibatidine toxin used to kill Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were also included among those sanctioned.
The chemical used to take out the prominent Putin critic is thought to have been developed in Russian labs from a toxin found in Ecuadorian poison dart frogs.
Equally lethal, the terrifying chemical weapon Novichok can kill even in tiny amounts.
A drop as small as a sixth of a grain of salt could be fatal, top weapons scientists say.
The small perfume bottle containing Novichok that Russian spies smuggled into the UK contained “enough poison to kill thousands”, an inquiry into the attack heard.
After the terrifying attack on British soil, former commander of the Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment De Bretton-Gordon warned Putin could ramp up toxic warfare in Ukraine.
Moscow has launched over 13,000 chemical attacks against Ukrainian troops since the start of the war in 2022, Kyiv says.
Ukrainian intelligence says the intensity of chemical-related attacks has increased significantly beginning in 2024.
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were charged over the Salisbury Novichok attack Credit: Getty
The final report into the death of Dawn Sturgess found that Putin was ‘morally responsible’ for her death Credit: PA
The overall level of chemical munition use has remained consistently high across the entire front line in the first half of 2026, according to Kyiv.
Highlighting the mounting pressure his struggling war machine faces in Ukraine, De Bretton-Gordon said: “Russia is going backwards, Russia is really starting to suffer in the war with Ukraine.”
He warned the UK will not be able to rule out the prospect of another deadly chemical attack on British soil like the one that killed Dawn eight years ago.
“We should certainly be concerned…there is no doubt that we are in a hybrid war with Russia… MI6 and MI5, the security services, continue to warn us about this,” he said.
“Biological and chemical weapons are something we need to be on top of.
“But I think the British military particularly are learning the right lessons from Ukraine, where again Russia is using chemical weapons on an industrial scale and our soldiers need to be able to act to it.”
De Bretton-Gordon also said if Putin decided to use something like Novichok on the frontline, it would put his warfare on “a different scale”.
“I expect they probably don’t have the quantities that would make a difference, but there is always that concern in the background,” he said.
Putin has launched over 13,000 chemical attacks against Ukrainian troops since the start of the war in 2022, Kyiv says Credit: Reuters
Ukraine reports the level of chemical munition use has remained consistently high across the entire frontline in the first half of 2026 Credit: East2West
“There are reports actually of Russia burying lots of carcasses infected with anthrax in Ukraine, held Russian territory recently, which might pose a biological threat.”
The analyst warned that the Russians view biological and chemical weapons as a key part of their arsenal.
He said it’s important Putin knows we’re keeping tabs on his labs.
De Bretton-Gordon added: “It’s key the Russians know that we know all about the sort of activities they’re getting up to so that they can’t claim, as they often do, what we call a false flag and create a chemical or biological attack and then claim it’s the other side.
“I saw them do that an awful lot in Syria when they were supporting President Assad, who also used a lot of chemical weapons.
“And it was all completely false and untrue. It was actually Assad using these weapons.
“So it’s multifaceted. It’s a very complex war that’s happening at the moment.”
He warned that Putin’s humiliation in Ukraine could see him become more reckless and unpredictable, saying: “The Russian bear is severely wounded. And a wounded animal is always at its most dangerous just before it dies.”
Asked about whether Novichok could be produced on a mass scale for use on the frontline through drone warfare, De Bretton-Gordon could not rule out the threat.
He said the Nazis as well as the Americans during World War II produced Sarin, widely seen as Novichok’s predecessor, in huge quantities.
“Russia is probably the only country in the world that could produce it in quantity,” he said.
“And certainly the threat of drones flying around with Novichok onis really a challenging threat.”
But he noted: “Novichok is quite a complex chemical. It’s a set of warfare agents. It’s not something you can knock up in your back shed.”
He added: “One of the issues with Novichok, is a sort of very viscous chemical, so it doesn’t sort of spread on the air as such, but it spreads on the ground and it’s very persistent.
“It lasts for a long time and it was designed so that Nato detectors couldn’t detect it.”
Novichok can linger for years on the ground. Although the army decontaminated Salisbury in 2019, a litter- picking ban remained in place in the city until last year.
And as Putin continues his tests his weapons on humans, there’s no way of knowing what the deranged dictator could brew up next.
