Journalists suspect what is really happening on a remote Russian island

For decades, Lisiy Island in the Vyshny Volochyok reservoir was a place where local residents fished and picked berries. Access changed after the northern part of the reservoir became a nature monument in 2023. Today, the island houses the Experimental Physiology Center, a facility closed to the public.

An investigation by Sistema and RFE/RL’s Russian Service found that the center’s director, Vladimir Maksimov, previously worked at the Russian Defense Ministry’s 48th Central Research Institute. The United States sanctioned that institute and two other Russian facilities in 2020 over suspected continuation of biological and chemical weapons programs, the investigation said.

The agency supervising the new center has also appeared in investigations into the poisonings of opposition politician Alexei Navalny and former GRU officer Sergei Skripal with a Novichok-type nerve agent. The island itself has a longer history of infectious-disease research. It housed a veterinary laboratory during the Russian Empire and, under Joseph Stalin, a facility for experiments involving infectious diseases in farm animals.

The former settlement on Lisiy Island became an Experimental Physiology Center under Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency in spring 2021, about a year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Construction of a modern laboratory complex was completed by autumn 2025. Satellite images taken in July 2026 show a large laboratory building, a landscaped park, accommodation for staff and guests, and a helicopter landing site.

On August 21, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, said the center was conducting experiments with dangerous viruses and other pathogens “for the needs of the Russian armed forces.” Journalists found links to the military while examining Maksimov’s biography. Publicly available records indicate that he spent years taking part in biological research for the Russian military and focused mainly on exotic, deadly hemorrhagic-fever viruses such as Ebola and Marburg. The article says both pathogens were considered potential foundations for biological weapons in the Soviet Union.

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for the needs of the Russian armed forces