Many Western officials think Vladimir Putin might go as far as to use chemical weapons and falsely claim Ukraine had done so
has rocketed Kyiv, shelled Kharkiv and bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol in his quixotic and blood-soaked effort to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Some think he may soon resort to worse. “[W]e should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false-]flag operation using them,” warned Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, on March 9th. “I’ll make you one other prediction,” noted Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, a day later.
In 2013 Syria’s government used sarin gas on opposition-controlled areas in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus, killing over 1,400 people. Sarin is a type of nerve agent: a chemical that disrupts the messages sent from nerves to other parts of the body, causing paralysis and the loss of bodily functions. More than 300 other chemical attacks—mostly with chlorine, a less sophisticated chemical used in the first world war—occurred during Syria’s civil war.
The weapons are illegal under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Russia joined in 1997, though designated facilities can produce small amounts of research for “protective” purposes. An industrial-scale programme to produce chemical agents and the munitions to carry them would be unlikely to remain hidden. “Some lab can make a vial or a jug of this stuff, but that’s a world of difference than equipping artillery battalions to fire lots of shells,” says Mr Kaszeta.
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