By Galina Korol | 2024-12-03

KYIV -- For over a thousand days Russia has been waging an aggressive, criminal war against Ukraine, violating every imaginable convention, law and custom of warfare.

This includes the Russian army's use of chemical weapons on the front. Since February 2023, this has become "systemic," say Ukrainian forces.

'Lilac' dropped from drones

In October alone, units of Ukrainian radiation, chemical and biological protection (RCBP) forces recorded 323 cases of Russia's use of hazardous chemicals, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

The number of cases recorded since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion is in the thousands.

"[Since the beginning of the war,] 4,613 cases of the enemy using ammunition with hazardous chemicals have been documented," the Ukrainian general staff said on Telegram November 8.

"In more than 80% of cases Russia is using the CN [phenacyl chloride] and CS [2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile] tear gases. These are chemically toxic substances, and their chemical and physical characteristics are nearly identical," Col. Serhii Pakhomov, deputy commander of Ukrainian RCBP forces, told Deutsche Welle (DW) in a story published November 4.

Law enforcement in various countries uses these gases for riot control.

Russian troops hit Ukrainian troops with CN and CS -- also called "Lilac" tear gas -- by using K-51, RGR and RG-VO grenades that are dropped from drones, said Pakhomov.

"This demonstrates that [in Russia] they've started a production process and that this isn't just some gas pumped into a a homemade device," Viktor Yahun, a former deputy director of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and now director of the Agency for Security Sector Reform, told Kontur.

Confirmed cases

After Russia on September 20 attacked Ukrainian forces near Illinka village, Dnipropetrovsk province, the Ukrainians gathered shell and soil samples.

In response to this incident, the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) sent a group of experts to Ukraine to gather documentation and computer files, statements from eyewitnesses, and three samples collected by Ukraine: a shell from a grenade and two soil samples from a trench.

"Upon return to OPCW Headquarters, the samples were sent to two OPCW designated laboratories selected by the Director-General for independent analysis," the OPCW said in a statement November 18.

"The analyses by the OPCW designated laboratories ... confirm that the grenade and soil samples collected from the trench contain the riot control agent 2-Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile known as CS," it said.

The OPCW's statement was the first confirmation of the incident.

The use of riot control agents as a method of warfare is prohibited under the OPCW's Chemical Weapons Convention.

"Russia signed and ratified this agreement. However, Russia ... couldn't care less about the convention," Yaroslav Kuts, a Kyiv lawyer and chief of the law firm A2KT, told Kontur.

"In 2017 Russia announced that it had ... eliminated its chemical weapons," he said.

"But as we all know, in 2018 they created a batch of Novichok, which they used in Great Britain, and then they used it against [Russian opposition leader Alexei] Navalny. So Russia was lying then and always lies," Kuts added.

Russia used the Novichok nerve agent to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the British incident cited by Kuts. They survived, but an Englishwoman died.

Poisoned water

Russia's use of chemical weapons in Ukraine is much broader and more serious, said Kuts.

"Phosphorus bombs, tear gas grenades, poisoned water and food: that's all happening on the front," he said.

Yevhen Skoryna, commander of the Carpathian Sich 49th Infantry Battalion, confirmed this assessment.

"The use by the [Russians] of toxic substances isn't a new thing, and you see it quite often in the enemy's actions in modern wartime conditions," he told Kontur. "The [Russians] regularly drop munitions with toxic gases using unmanned drones."

"Considering the situation and the [Ukrainian] units' being surrounded ... using poisoned water is a cynical violation of the rules of warfare," he added.

Oleksandr Selivanov, the commander of a unit in the RCBP company in the Oleksa Dovbush 68th Jaeger Brigade, shared his experience with the Russians' chemical warfare.

"I got chloropicrin poisoning. My eyes teared up, my throat and skin started burning, and it was hard to breathe," he told DW for its November 4 story.

'A testing ground'

Russian troops use chemical weapons primarily to force their Ukrainian foes to emerge from the trenches, explained Leonid Shelest, commander of the RCBP company of the Oleksa Dovbush 68th Jaeger Brigade.

"They try to smoke our guys out of the bunkers," he told DW. "When they throw out chemical weapons, it's impossible to stay in the bunker. The fighters are forced to go up to the surface, and then the Russians use mortars, [other] artillery and guns, or they drop things from drones."

Ukraine has become Russia's testing ground for weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after Russia attacked Dnipro with the Oreshnik ballistic missile on November 21.

This was the first-ever use in combat of a missile of this class.

"Today, our insane neighbor has once again revealed its true nature -- its disdain for dignity, freedom and human life itself. And, most of all, its fear," Zelenskyy said in a video posted on X.

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin will do anything to keep his neighbor from slipping out of his grasp," he said.