One of the key manufacturing sites was the Soviet State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT) in Nukus, Soviet Uzbekistan.[16] Small, experimental batches of the weapons may have been tested on the nearby Ustyurt plateau.[17] It may also have been tested in a research centre in Krasnoarmeysk near Moscow.[16] Precursor chemicals were made at the Pavlodar Chemical Plant in Soviet Kazakhstan, which was also thought to be the intended Novichok weapons production site, until its still under construction chemical warfare agent production building was demolished in 1987 in view of the forthcoming Chemical Weapons Convention.[18][19]
Since its independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has been working with the government of the United States to dismantle and decontaminate the sites where the Novichok agents and other chemical weapons were tested and developed.[16][17]
