Western countries and Russia locked horns Monday at a meeting on chemical weapons control, with a U.S. official saying she was “dismayed” by Moscow's alleged use of banned tear gas as a means of warfare in Ukraine .
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced on November 18 that it had discovered CS riot gas in samples provided by Ukraine, coming from the area where it is fighting Russian forces it accuses of have recourse.
The OPCW's Chemical Weapons Convention, based in The Hague, prohibits the use of riot control agents, including CS gas, “as means of warfare.”
“I remain dismayed by the scale and frequency of Russia's use of riot control agents as a means of warfare against Ukrainian forces,” said U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Bonnie Jenkins, at the OPCW annual meeting.
“Russia already lied when it said it had no intention of invading Ukraine. She also lied when she said she was not using riot control agents in violation of the Convention,” she told delegates.
This is the first time that the use of anti-riot gas has been confirmed in areas where fighting is taking place in Ukraine, according to the OPCW, which however stressed that it is not seeking to identify the source.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of using chemical weapons for nearly three years of war. Russia's representative, Kirill Lysogorsky, responded, saying that “the West is trying to settle scores with countries it considers undesirable.”
“The kyiv regime continues to systematically use toxic chemicals and riot control agents against the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the civilian population,” he accused.
For its part, the European Union judged, through its special envoy Stephan Klement, that Russia “has not provided credible answers (…) on the growing number of reported cases of use of riot control agents as means of war by its forces in Ukraine.
