Chemical Weapons

The Russians are deliberately using chemical weapons on two sections of the front in Ukraine.

The Russian Armed Forces used chloropicrin in the regions of Svatovsk and Bakhmut. This potent chemical substance causes severe poisoning, mouth and respiratory tract damage. In particularly severe cases, death can occur within minutes. This is not the first time the Russians have used chloropicrin: similar precedents were recorded in September 2022, as well as in March, May and August of this year.

The use of chloropicrin is prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention - in addition to severe poisoning, it leads to massive contamination of soil and groundwater. In France, for example, vast areas of once arable land are still unusable because of the massive use of chemical weapons by the Germans against French troops during the First World War. After more than a hundred years, the land still remains affected, hence Russia in Ukraine is committing deliberate ecocide. After the end of the war, in addition to the huge number of mines, Ukraine's farmland will be contaminated with Russian chemical weapons.

Such tactics of the Kremlin are not new: in Afghanistan, Soviet troops also used chloropicrin against the mujahideen, and after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russians are using the remaining stockpiles against the AFU. The terrorist state is guided neither by moral nor legal criteria: the use of chemical weapons is a war crime. Sanctions and international isolation of the Russian Federation are a logical response to its crimes in Ukraine.