US accuses Russia of using banned chemical weapons in Ukraine
Ukrainian personnel putting on self-protection equipment during a training in Germany. (Photo: German MoD)
Moscow was blamed for perpetrating multiple gas attacks with a choking agent against Kyiv’s armed forces.
The US Department of State (DoS) accused Moscow on 1 May of breaching the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and conducting gas attacks in Ukraine. The DoS claimed that Russia used riot control agents as a method of warfare and deployed Chloropicrin against Kyiv’s troops.
Also known as PS or nitrochloroform, the choking agent has been banned by the CWC, which the Kremlin joined in 1997. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Chloropicrin inflicts injury on the respiratory tract and, when inhaled, causes alveoli “to secrete fluid, essentially drowning those affected”.
“The use of such chemicals is not
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