(Paris) Westerners are openly worried about the possible use of chemical weapons in Ukraine by Moscow, which the failures of its military offensive make even more unpredictable, raising the specter of the atrocities committed by the Damascus regime in Syria.
Posted at 10:30 a.m.
Since Wednesday, the United States and the United Kingdom have claimed that Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
A sign according to them that Russia is considering this scenario, Moscow accuses Washington and Kyiv of managing laboratories intended to produce biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine, which are internationally prohibited.
The UN Security Council is due to meet urgently on Friday morning on this subject at the request of Moscow, despite the firm denial of Kyiv and Washington.
“The Kremlin is intentionally spreading outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons-related activities in Ukraine,” US foreign policy spokesman Ned Price said on Wednesday.
PHOTO REUTERS
US Foreign Minister Ned Price
Moscow had already accused in 2018 the United States of secretly carrying out biological experiments in a laboratory in Georgia, another former Soviet republic which, like Ukraine, aims to join NATO and the European Union.
There are indeed sites in the country that could lend themselves to false flag attacks: Ukraine has “biological research facilities”, confirmed the number three of American diplomats Victoria Nuland, stressing that the United States were “now quite worried about the possibility of Russian forces trying to take control of it”.
The Russians “start by saying that there are chemical weapons stockpiled by their opponents or by the Americans. And so when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they do, they have a kind of maskirovka” — a Russian term for the art of deceiving the enemy — “a fake story ready,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.
Russia is one of 198 signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997, and has officially completed the destruction of 100% of its 40,000 tons of chemical weapons.
“Terrorize the population”
But in recent years, Westerners have blamed Moscow for two poisoning cases using the nerve agent Novichok, targeting now-imprisoned opponent Alexei Navalny (2020) and former Russian spy Sergei Skripal , England (2018).
Russia has also shown itself to be complacent with the regime in Damascus by always denying the repeated use of chemical weapons by Syria against civilian populations.
These crimes have largely gone unpunished. In 2013, US President Barack Obama (2009-2017), who had nevertheless made it a “red line”, had given up punitive strikes in Syria.
The hypothesis of a use of chemical weapons in Ukraine also worries France, while the Russian army does not achieve the expected success.
The Russian invasion launched on February 24 “was supposed to show the strength of Russia, the opposite is happening. This makes [le président russe] Vladimir Poutine all the more unpredictable”, warns the French chief of staff, Thierry Burkhard, in a letter sent Wednesday to his general officers.
“Vladimir Putin did not enter this war to lose it. In the event of being bogged down or humiliated, the use of dirty weapons or tactical nuclear weapons is one of the possibilities, ”adds a senior officer, on condition of anonymity.
“Russia failed to enter the war. We have to save face for the Kremlin,” argues Mathieu Boulègue, Russia specialist at the British think tank Chatham House. “The chemical is a vector that he could very well use. It is not unlikely”.
In Ukraine, chemical weapons “would be intended to terrorize the civilian population and force them to flee. But it is not a weapon that would change the face of war. A tactical nuclear weapon that would raze a Ukrainian city, yes,” warns Mathieu Boulègue.
Olivier Lepick, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), specialist in chemical weapons, is more circumspect.
“We would take an additional step in terror and therefore the disapproval of international public opinion, which would also risk strengthening the sanctions regime which is already extremely severe”, he judges.