Russia has intensified its attacks using tear gas diverted from its original use, the Ukrainian army said on Monday, which recorded 715 attacks of this type in the month of May alone.
The modus operandi would be the dropping by drone of “K-51 and RG-VO grenades”, normally used by law enforcement to disperse riots, according to the same source.
The Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement on Facebook that it had “documented 715 cases of use of munitions containing dangerous chemical compounds by the Russians” for the month of May, “271 cases more than in April.”
“215 Ukrainian soldiers” visited “medical institutions” last month and showed “symptoms of chemical damage of varying severity”, it is also indicated. “The use of chemical weapons or chemical riot control agents as a means of warfare constitutes a violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their destruction” (CIAC)”, recalled the Ukrainian army.
The CIAC effectively prohibits the use of tear gas as a “means of war,” but allows it for maintaining law and order.
The American State Department had, in May, accused Moscow of having used a “chemical weapon”, chloropicrin, a suffocating agent, against Ukrainian troops, in violation of the CIAC, although ratified by Moscow which denies possessing a chemical arsenal.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) deemed the information it received on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine “insufficiently substantiated”.
The modus operandi would be the dropping by drone of “K-51 and RG-VO grenades”, normally used by law enforcement to disperse…
