Russia is strongly suspected of using tear gas or irritants in Ukraine, banned chemical weapons whose use is of military interest and remains difficult to prove, allowing Moscow to claim to respect its international obligations.
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The Ukrainian security services (SBU) claimed responsibility for the assassination on Tuesday of General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russian radiological, chemical and biological defense, whom they accuse of “war crimes” for having ordered, according to Kyiv, the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.
Kyiv says it has recorded 4,950 cases of Russia’s use of munitions containing chemical agents since February 2023, having injured more than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers through “chemical poisoning,” said Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya.
Russian authorities have repeatedly rejected these accusations, calling them “absurd.”
According to the Ukrainian SBU, the substances used are tear gas or irritants – CS and CN – contained in grenades dropped by small drones above the front line.
Despite these multiple presumptions, only one case could be formally proven: the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced on November 18 that anti-riot tear gas had been found on a grenade and soil samples taken on September 20 in the Dnipropetrovsk region and handed over by Ukraine to the organization.
The OPCW says it does not “seek to identify the source or origin of the toxic chemical.”
The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of chemical riot control agents “as means of warfare.”
These substances, which are not fatal except in very high concentrations, cause irritation of the mucous membranes and respiratory and vision discomfort.
The body of evidence of the use of chemical weapons was deemed sufficient by Washington and London for them to announce, in May and October, sanctions against Russian public institutions and companies.
Dislodge trenches
If only one case could be proven, it is in particular because “these are very volatile agents” whose traces fade quickly and the collection of evidence is often out of reach, Olivier Lepick explains to AFP , associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), specialist in chemical weapons.
“Going to take physico-chemical samples on the front line in a combat theater like this is particularly dangerous and complicated,” he told AFP.
Moscow also accuses Kyiv of using chemical weapons, but “the Russians have, unlike the Ukrainians, never provided the beginnings of proof,” specifies the researcher.
And the use of these weapons responds to a military interest for the Russians, who are on the offensive: “when you attack in front of entrenched positions, the use of chemical weapons makes sense, but when you are in a position defensively it has no interest.
“Chemical weapons make it more complicated to fight an enemy buried in fortifications, in trenches” which are easier to dislodge than with “conventional” munitions, according to him.
The use of these chemical weapons makes it possible to weaken enemy lines and open breaches, adds Emma Nix, researcher at the Atlantic Council.
“Putin’s goal does not appear to be maximum death and destruction in this case. It is perhaps more for him to test the waters in order to assess the reaction of the international community and to determine how far he can go,” she said in a note published in the spring.
At the start of the invasion, Joe Biden warned that Russia “would pay a high price if it used chemical weapons”.
The use of non-lethal chemical agents has advantages over organophosphate nerve gases such as sarin, soman or VX, which are “light years away in terms of toxicity”, according to Olivier Lepick.
“If it used it, we would have proof that Russia is contravening its international commitments,” he explains. “They must not, which we doubt, carry out research, production or development activities for these weapons.”
Russia is one of 198 signatory countries to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and in 2017 officially completed the destruction of 100% of its 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons.
And if a nerve agent, Novichok, was indeed used for the assassinations of opponents, Moscow has always been able to deny that the Russian state was behind it. If used on the battlefield, for Olivier Lepick, “there would be no doubt that these are Russian forces.”
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