Russia on Friday denied any violation of international law after being accused by Ukraine of using phosphorus bombs as part of its military offensive in the neighboring country for a month.
“Russia has never violated any international convention,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked by the press about the accusations made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Phosphorus bombs are incendiary weapons whose use is prohibited against civilians, but not against military targets, according to a Convention signed in 1980 in Geneva.
Protocol III of the International Convention on Conventional Weapons CCW, signed in 1980 and entered into force in December 1983, stipulates that this type of weapon “is prohibited in all circumstances” against civilian populations.
Incendiary weapons are also prohibited against military targets when they are close to civilian populations.
But this protocol does not concern white phosphorus when it is used for its smoke-producing or illuminating properties.
Russia and Ukraine have been considered signatories to this Protocol III since 1982 (during the time of the USSR) while the United States signed it with reservations in 2009 and France, also with reservations, in 2002.
Several countries have been accused of using incendiary weapons in recent years, such as the United States in 2004 in Iraq or Russia in 2018 in Syria.
To see in video