The wiki article seems to give more context about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent: > Novichok h

The wiki article seems to give more context about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent: > Novichok has, however, been known to most western secret services since the 1990s,[16] and in 2016 Iranian chemists synthesised five Novichok agents for analysis and produced detailed mass spectral data which was added to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Central Analytical Database.[17][18] Previously, there had been no detailed descriptions of their spectral properties in open scientific literature.[17][19] A small amount of agent A-230 was also claimed to have been synthesised in the Czech Republic in 2017 for the purpose of obtaining analytical data to help defend against these novel toxic compounds.[20]