War in Ukraine | The threat of chemical weapons looms

As the Russian invaders continue their strategy of encircling and strangling Ukrainian cities, another escalation could emerge between Russia and Ukraine and its allies, that of chemical weapons.

Suzanne Colpron
The Press

For now, it’s just a war of words, sparked by Moscow, which called for an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council to denounce what it claimed to be the presence of chemical weapons. in Ukraine, supported by the Americans.

This led to a debate on Friday where Russia and the West accused each other of disinformation.

Ukraine has “a network of 30 laboratories” where “very dangerous biological experiments” are carried out, said the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vassili Nebenzia, taking up arguments raised Thursday by the Ministry of Defense and the head of diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov.

Accusations which the Ukrainians and the Americans have vigorously rejected, supported in this by the United Nations Organization, which “is not aware of any biological weapons program in Ukraine”, declared an official of the disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu.

Several observers fear that this exchange is a prelude to Russian propaganda which would elaborate an argument in order to prepare Russian public opinion and justify the use of such weapons against Ukraine. This is already worrying the West.

Russia “will pay a heavy price if it uses chemical weapons” in its war against Ukraine, US President Joe Biden said during a speech at the White House.

“The most important danger”

According to Professor Justin Massie, of UQAM, an expert in international security, “the most important danger that we can envisage today is precisely the use of chemical weapons by the Russians in Ukraine, like that happened in Syria”.

“My fear is the reaction that NATO could have,” he explained in an interview with The Press. We can already see, with the completely unheard-of massacres, that North American public opinion, in particular, but somewhat European too, is putting more and more pressure on the United States and other countries to do more . The reaction, from my point of view, has to be stronger, but still below the threshold of what could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, because that could of course lead to a nuclear conflict. »

The situation on the ground

At 16^and On the day of the war, Russian forces concentrated their offensive against Kyiv and cities in eastern Ukraine, including the major city of Dnipro, according to a statement from the Ukrainian army. The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, is said to have been kidnapped by Russian soldiers who are occupying this city in the south of the country. “He refused to cooperate with the enemy,” said the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, on its Twitter account.

In Mykolaiv, in the south of the country, shelling hit a hospital specializing in cancer treatment, Ukrainian authorities said. Hundreds of patients were in the facility during the attack, but no one was killed, according to the hospital’s chief medical officer, Maksim Beznosenko.

Mariupol, a port city on the edge of the Sea of ​​Azov, besieged for almost two weeks by the Russian army, is in an “almost desperate” situation, according to Doctors Without Borders.

According to an official report, there have already been 1,582 deaths.

Finally, the Russians continue their efforts to encircle the capital.

“The objective of the Russians is to encircle Kyiv to prevent any supplies as they did in Mariupol, as they did in Kharkiv, and then to shell the city, to destroy everything”, underlines the Professor Massie, from UQAM.

“We must do more”

In an address to the nation published on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the European Union must “do more” for Ukraine, after the refusal of the leaders of the 27 countries that make it up, gathered for a summit in Versailles, to agree to a rapid process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU.

“We have to do more and stronger, that’s not what we expect,” he said.

Support from Western countries has instead taken other forms. In addition to launching a $13.6 billion assistance package for the Ukrainian people, President Joe Biden has announced his intention to exclude Russia from the international trade regime and deprive it of its “most favored nation” status. “.

With this initiative, joined by the G7 countries and those of the European Union, punitive tariffs may be imposed on Russian imports. Remember that Canada had already announced this same sanction last week.

“We are also taking additional measures to ban key sectors of the Russian economy, including seafood, vodka and diamonds,” added Joe Biden, a symbolic measure that would nevertheless block sales of 1 billion.

A shower of penalties

The European Union, for its part, announced that it would continue to put pressure on Russia by introducing new sanctions.

“If Putin intensifies the bombardments, lays siege to Kyiv, if he further intensifies the scenes of war, we know that we will have to take massive sanctions again,” said the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, in Versailles.

For his part, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced new sanctions against Russian oligarchs, in particular Roman Abramovich, owner of the English soccer club Chelsea.

“Today we are announcing sanctions against five additional people, including Roman Abramovich,” Justin Trudeau told reporters in Warsaw after a nearly week-long mission to Europe. “These people will be prevented from doing business in Canada and their assets will be frozen,” he added.

Canada is the second country to sanction Roman Abramovich after the United Kingdom on Thursday.

The exodus of women and children

The movement of refugees continued at the same rate as the previous days, around 200,000 people in 24 hours. This brings the total number of refugees abroad to more than 2.5 million, mostly women and children, around 60% of them in Poland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Added to this is the very large number of people, around two million, who have been displaced within Ukraine itself to flee insecurity and fighting.

The Ukrainian government says 100,000 people have been evacuated in the past two days from seven towns in the north and center of the country. Further evacuations are planned, but repeated attempts to reach the town of Mariupol have remained unsuccessful, as the Russians continue the bombardment.

“Death to Russian soldiers”

On the propaganda front, Russia said on Friday it would restrict access to Instagram, which it accuses of spreading calls for violence against Russians. Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee had earlier announced that it was prosecuting Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for “calling for the murder” of Russians.

It is true that Meta has relaxed its policy on violent messages, but this measure, as explained by a spokesperson for the company, only applies in the context of the invasion of Ukraine, and cannot wear only on Russian soldiers. According to Reuters, this temporary policy only applies to certain countries closely affected by the conflict, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

For example, it allows a Ukrainian, in Ukraine, in the context of the invasion of which his country is the victim, to write “death to Russian soldiers”, and not just anyone to call for the murders of Russians. It is true that this nuance may escape the Russian authorities, for whom there is no war and no invasion, and for whom Russian soldiers are liberators rather than combatants.

With Agence France-Presse