Novichok

[Zastava-Arms]

Anybody have a good link that gives plenty of information about the Novichok nerve agent?

If nobody does [Its probably still classified info] then what are the chances of it being in service in the Russian military and is it really true that it is 8 times as lethal as the VX nerve agent?

 

[A Can of Man]

I found a link
http://warfare.ru/?linkid=2354&catid=329
Which claims what you say. It is a Russian server so you have to take it with a grain of salt. However, it is plausible.

The wikipedia article claims that it was never proven
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent#cite_note-Birstein-1
but the source of the claim is not a very impartial one so... again, a mystery.

This is a 1994 NYT article about the guy who leaked the existence of the nerve agent:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/12/opinion/novichok-on-trial.html
I'd take this with a grain of salt too because its explanation on the lethality of nerve agents is not entirely true unless he's referring entirely to VX only.

I nearly babbled on and on about how potent VX actually is but I guess it's besides the point.
I've never really been able to get an accurate or reliable account of just how dangerous this Russian chemical agent is, or how penetrative it is of protection equipment (primarily filters). Truth is, I can't even find information on its vapor density. So in other words, it's a mystery agent.
I don't know how much data on the VX was available to anyone in the early 90's and judging from the movie "The Rock" (a mid 90's movie) it looks like people may have actually been clueless.
So unless this guy knew everything about the VX agent, it's hard to say that between the two agents, Novichok would be the hands down winner

 

[Zastava-Arms]

I've never really been able to get an accurate or reliable account of just how dangerous this Russian chemical agent is, or how penetrative it is of protection equipment (primarily filters). Truth is, I can't even find information on its vapor density. So in other words, it's a mystery agent.
I don't know how much data on the VX was available to anyone in the early 90's and judging from the movie "The Rock" (a mid 90's movie) it looks like people may have actually been clueless.
So unless this guy knew everything about the VX agent, it's hard to say that between the two agents, Novichok would be the hands down winner

Theres a chance that the USSR knew a fair bit about the VX [But I dont think so], the Cold War was "Fully hektik".

And what are the chances of Russia still being able to use them in Chemical Warfare? I think that if it was entirely useless to them Putin/Yeltsin/Medvedev wouldnt have a problem with letting out info on Novichok [Novichok is so fun to pronounce]

 

[A Can of Man]

Not necessarily true.
Sometimes a country will see benefit in overblowing or keeping a mystery the true capabilities of a weapon whether it be actually fielded or fictional such as the US Strategic Defense Initiative (aka Star Wars project):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
In an attempt to deliberately misinform other powers for a variety of purposes. It's not anything particularly unique and you can say it's even been covered in Sun Tzu's Art of War
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
How would a potential adversary of Russia behave if he believes that his troops have no protection against Russia's premier chemical weapon? He will modify his stance, even if this agent is in fact a work of fiction, as long as he believes it is true.

So to keep it short: we just don't know.
I also haven't been able to find anything substantially new on this chemical agent either. Seems like someone talked about it in the 90's and ever since then it's just been guys in internet forums bringing it back. If you find anything new about it, let me know, I'm interested in it as well.