The U.S State Department has accused President of Russia, Vladimir Putin of using chemical agents on Ukrainian troops.
The State Department made the announcement while revealing new sanctions against Russia, including against the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces.
The Kremlin states that the claims are baseless, but US officials stated the use of the choking chemical chloropicrin is not an isolated occurrence.
Since the start of the full-scale war, the Ukrainian military has repeatedly accused Russia of using chemical weapons, including chloropicrin.
The weapons are used to dislodge Ukrainian troops from defensive positions.
The gas was originally used in World War 1 as a poison of which Russia has an enormous supply of the chemical.
The accusation of war crimes was announced as a part of 300 new sanctions against Russia and others for the murder of Aleksey Navalny, who was killed in Siberia, and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, England.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a global watchdog that oversees implementation of the CWC, says a chemical weapon is a substance used to cause intentional death or harm through its toxic properties.
Chloropicrin – which the US says Russia has used to “dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions” – is an oily substance which was widely used during WW1. It causes irritation of the lungs, eyes and skin and can cause vomiting, nausea and diarrhoea, according to the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
The chemical’s use in war is expressly banned under the CWC, and is listed as a choking agent by the OPCW.
The state department also said Moscow has regularly used “riot control agents,” or tear gas, during the war.
