Washington: The US Department of State on Wednesday accused Russia of using chemical weapons in Ukraine, such as the choking agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops, and announced sanctions against over 280 individuals and entities for foreign aggression and internal repression. Washington also accused Russia of violating an international chemical weapons ban and using riot control agents "as a method of warfare" in Ukraine.
The State Department announced that it is re-imposing restrictions on foreign military financing, US Government lines of credit, and export licences for defence articles and national security-sensitive items going to Russia. The Department also sanctioned three Russian government entities associated with Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programmes and four Russian companies that have contributed to such entities.
"The United States will continue to use the tools at its disposal to disrupt support for Russia’s military-industrial base and curtail Russia’s use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine. We continue to stand in solidarity with Russians striving for a more democratic future and with Ukrainians defending their homeland from Russia’s aggression," it said.
Russia's use of chloropicrin in Ukraine
Chloropicrin is listed as a banned choking agent by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was created to implement and monitor compliance with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). German forces fired the gas against Allied troops during World War I in one of the first uses of a chemical weapon.
The US State Department made a determination under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that Russia has used chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces in violation of the CWC. "The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident, and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield," the department further wrote in its statement.
Washington also sanctioned the radiological, chemical and biological defence troops of Russia's defence ministry for involvement in day-to-day operations of Moscow's chemical weapons programme and facilitating the use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops; Scientific Research Institute of Applied Acoustics for involvement in the procurement and inventory of chemicals used in the production of chemical weapons agents; and the Russian defence ministry's 48th Central Scientific Research Institute for association with the biological weapons programme.
Riot control gases and other toxic substances
Earlier, the Ukrainian military said Russia has stepped up its illegal of use riot control agents as it presses its biggest advances in eastern Ukraine in more than two years. In addition to chloropicrin, Russian forces have used grenades loaded with CS and CN gases, the Ukrainian military says. It says at least 500 Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for exposure to toxic substances and one was killed by suffocating on tear gas.
While civilians usually can escape riot control gases during protests, soldiers stuck in trenches without gas masks must either flee under enemy fire or risk suffocating. Moscow's use of the gas "comes from the same playbook as its operations to poison" the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 and Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018 with the Novichok nerve agent, the statement said.
Separately, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on three entities and two individuals involved in purchasing items for Russian military institutes involved in the country's chemical and biological weapons programs. The sanctions were among new measures announced by the United States on Wednesday targeting Russia over its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The CWC bans the production and use of chemical weapons. It also requires the 193 countries that have ratified the convention, which include Russia and the US, to destroy any stocks of banned chemicals. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of breaching the treaty in OPCW meetings.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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