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In the Soviet Union, particularly during the 1930s and 1940s, gas vans were employed as a method of mass execution. These vans were modified cargo trucks with airtight chambers in the rear compartment. The victims, usually political prisoners or perceived enemies of the state, were loaded into the room, and carbon monoxide gas was introduced to asphyxiate them.

This method allowed for mobile and relatively discreet executions.Gas vans were used by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, as part of their repressive tactics and purges during the Great Purge in the late 1930s and later during World War II. The exact number of victims is difficult to ascertain, but it is estimated that thousands of people were killed using these gas vans.

It is important to note that the use of gas vans by the Soviet Union was distinct from the extermination camps and gas chambers utilized by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The scale and systematic nature of the Holocaust were far more extensive than the Soviet Union's use of gas vans for executions.