In 1946, a year after the war ended, a new army biological research complex was established at Sverdlovsk

The Soviet Union’s approach to biological warfare took a new turn in September 1945, Ken Alibek explains (in Biohazard), when Soviet troops in Manchuria overran a Japanese military facility known as Water Purification Unit 731: The unit, commanded by Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, experimented with anthrax, dysentery, cholera, and plague on U.S., British, and Commonwealth [ ]