The Institute of Ultra-Pure Biopreparations, Ken Alibek explains (in Biohazard), provided many of the Soviet Union’s breakthroughs in bio-weapons production:
One of its most notable contributions was a milling machine that used a powerful blast of air to turn bacterial and viral mixtures into a fine powder. Nothing like this “jet-stream” machine had ever been built before, at least so far as we knew. It was intended to replace the heavy ball-bearing mills used for decades by the Ministry of Defense and to become a standard fixture at all of our production plants.
Work was also done on new approaches to drying and microencapsulation—the process of covering agents in polymer capsules to preserve and protect them from ultraviolet light. Highly pathogenic agents were forbidden inside the city limits, so the focus of the institute was on developing new processes and equipment.
One of Pasechnik’s most important projects was the modification of cruise missiles for the delivery of biological agents. The Leningrad scientists were asked to analyze the efficiency of aerosol clouds sprayed from a “fast-flying, low-altitude moving object” containing one or more twenty-liter canisters of liquid or dry agent. They designed a moving platform to release canisters as the missile passed over successive targets. The canisters would break apart on impact with the air.