Seems I was wrong and that Mr. Putin has set a new low even for him!
This appeared last week:
Kremlin ramps up illegal gas attacks to secure its gains
Maxim Tucker
19 April, 2025
Russian forces have increased their use of banned gas weapons in Ukraine as they push to seize full control of four occupied regions before a possible ceasefire deal, according to Kyiv’s military.
Although using chemical agents to cause toxic harm in war is prohibited by international treaties, President Vladimir Putin’s troops used tear gas, chloropicrin, a choking agent, and other “unidentified chemicals” a total of 767 times last month, 844 times in February and 740 times in January.
That compares with 166 times in November, when President Donald Trump was elected on pledges to end the war, the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Department of Ukraine’s armed forces (RCBZ) said.
The Times also spoke to soldiers and doctors who claimed to have witnessed the deaths of Ukrainian servicemen as a result of attacks by chemical weapons, as well as pathologists who recorded the deaths of soldiers who were allegedly gassed.
The witnesses suggested the Russians were increasingly resorting to chemical weapons to flush out Ukrainians from defensive strongholds or to immobilise and leave them vulnerable to conventional attacks.
The US State Department and war monitors have previously accused Moscow of using CN and CS gases – also known as tear gas – to deadly effect in Ukraine. It also said that Russia had used chloropicrin, which is severely irritating to the lungs and eyes, to dislodge Ukrainian troops from fortified positions.
Although classified as “riot-control agents”, tear gases are banned from the battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1925 Geneva Protocol as they can cause great harm to soldiers deployed in trenches or enclosed locations. Chloropicrin, a pesticide, is classified as a “toxic chemical” and severe exposure can be fatal.
The Kremlin, which along with Ukraine is a signatory of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, has rejected claims that it uses toxic gases as “baseless”.
But Colonel Artem Vlasyuk of Ukraine’s RCBZ claimed that Russian forces had used the agents at least 7730 times since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, including 2351 recorded occasions since the start of this year.
“Forty per cent of these were recorded as the direct use of K-51 and RG-Vo grenades, which contain CS and CN gas,” said Vlasyuk.
“The rest of the cases we identify as the use of dangerous chemicals by the enemy, classified as unknown substances because our units did not have access to the place of use due to intense enemy fire or the loss of positions where these dangerous chemical substances were used.”
The Times received reports of dozens of Ukrainian soldiers affected by gas attacks in at least six frontline zones, as well as those who did not suffer lasting damage, or who were able to put on their gas masks in time.
The RCBZ said that Ukrainian investigators were looking into specific incidents, including deaths, and could not comment before charges were brought. “We can’t exclude the use of deadly substances by Russia in combination with tear gas,” Vlasyuk added.
Kyiv’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “The Russian military regularly uses riot-control agents and ammunition equipped with dangerous chemicals against Ukrainian forces, including those of unknown origin. Unfortunately, a number of fatalities among the Ukrainian military were recorded.”
Russia’s Iranian-made “kamikaze” attack drones have also been armed with payloads of CS gas for attacks from the air, officials from Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council announced on Wednesday.
The Kremlin has in turn, and without providing evidence, alleged Ukraine’s forces have used “a wide range of toxic chemicals against Russian servicemen and public officials”, including fertilisers, pesticides and other banned toxins. Kyiv has denied this.
On the war’s southern front, Russian troops are pushing to take the town of Orikhiv, which would bring them within artillery range of Zaporizhzhia city, capital of the region of the same name. which Putin claims to have annexed.
Soldiers of Ukraine’s 65th Mechanised Brigade who are defending the town said they were coming under “daily” chemical attacks and displayed used tear gas grenades and improvised canisters they said had been dropped by Russian drones.
Senior Lieutenant Sergey Skibchyk also claimed that “very often the Russians disguise poisonous substances as tear gas, or come up with their own dispersal devices, such as adding ordinary plastic bottles with various elements that, when combined or when exploded, emit aerosols that are lethal”.
“We are not talking tears and coughing, we are talking about chemical burns of the larynx, lungs, oral cavity, nasopharynx and even the skin,” Skibchyk said.
A man was killed and a woman injured in a Russian drone attack on a wholesale bakery making Easter treats on April 18, which is Good Friday, a key Easter date for Christians, according to Ukrainian officials. Footage from the local branch of national…
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has issued two reports confirming the presence of CS gas on Ukrainian battlefields, but declined to comment on the use of other types of gases.
Its work is based on samples taken from the Ukrainian side, but it has not attributed blame or commented on the scale of the chemicals’ use.
The UK Ministry of Defence said: “Putin’s use of chemical agents as part of his illegal invasion of Ukraine is a clear violation of international law … in December 2024, the UK contributed a further £3 million for the procurement of respirators for Ukraine.”
Lennie Phillips, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said any international mission to establish what chemical weapons were being used in Ukraine, and how, would be impossible without a ceasefire.
“If you’re talking about chemicals being used against people … in the middle of a conflict, full stop, their eyes are on the enemy [and] dealing with the aftermath,” he explained. “I think the last thing on their mind, understandably, would be, ‘Oh, let’s get a sample so we can send it off and we can see what the Russians have been using.’ … The Russians know that.”
The Times
Here is the link:
I can hear my favourite Ukrainian loudly pointing out that you simply can’t trust Russians (and the Ukranians should know!) and saying how stupid I am to even imagine Russians could be trusted!
Turns out she was spot on! They are really international lowlife behaving like this!
David.
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