Russia breached chemical weapons ban in Ukraine, US says
- 2 May, 12:17
Washington has accused Russia of using chemical weapons against Ukraine and imposed new sanctions on Russian government bodies and firms.
In a statement published on Wednesday, the State Department announced that Russia has used the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
It added that Russia has also used riot control agents as a method of warfare in Ukraine, also in violation of the CWC. The State Department announced that it was sanctioning three Russian Federation government entities associated with Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs and four Russian companies providing support to such entities.
“The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident, and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield. Russia’s ongoing disregard for its obligations to the CWC comes from the same playbook as its operations to poison Aleksey Navalny and Sergei and Yulia Skripal with Novichok nerve agents, the Statement Department’s statement reads.
Moscow rejected Washington’s claims about the use of chemical weapons.
"As always, such announcements are absolutely unfounded and are not supported by anything. Russia has been and remains committed to its obligations under international law in this area," Kremlin Spokesperson Demitry Peskov stated on Thursday.
“There are no chemical weapons in the stockpiles of the Russian army, as confirmed by international investigations,” the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands wrote on its X (formerly known as Twitter) page, according to a report from the state-run TASS news agency in January.
The State Department’s conclusion about the use of chemical weapons by Russia resonate with Ukrainian troops’ claims in March that Russian forces have been employing gas and other irritant chemicals in the frontline in recent months.
