Could Russia use chemical weapons in Ukraine?
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches with binoculars the Tsentr-2019 military exercise at the Donguz range near Orenburg city on September 20, 2019.
Alexey Nikolsky | Afp | Getty Images
There are increasing concerns that Russia could be prepared to use chemical weapons to attack Ukraine, with Western officials and strategists warning the threat posed by Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin in this regard is credible and serious.
In the last week, Russia itself has accused Ukraine of operating chemical and biological weapons laboratories backed by the U.S. The claims were roundly rebuffed by Ukrainian and Western officials, with the U.S. describing them as “outright lies.” But they have caused alarm nonetheless, with many officials seeing them as Russia inventing and building a false narrative and pretext for using its own chemical weapons against Ukraine, a prospect described as “horrific” by the U.S.
“Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very crimes that Russia itself is perpetrating. These tactics are an obvious ploy by Russia to try to justify further premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attacks on Ukraine,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement last week.
“The United States does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine … It is Russia that has active chemical and biological weapons programs and is in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention,” he added.
President Joe Biden warned Friday that there would be a “severe price” to pay if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday that such a move would be a war crime.
“Now that these false claims have been made, we must remain vigilant because it is possible that Russia itself could plan chemical weapons operations under this fabrication of lies,” Stoltenberg told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
CNBC has contacted Russia’s foreign ministry for a response to the U.S. and NATO’s comments.
‘Game changer’
While the West has been united in its condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the U.K. describing Putin’s regime as “barbaric,” just how far the U.S. and its NATO allies are willing to go to support Ukraine, and stop Russia, is a moot point. NATO has repeatedly ruled out any kind of military support, such as a no-fly zone pleaded for by Ukraine, that could lead it into a direct confrontation with nuclear power Russia.
But Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said in an interview Sunday that the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine by Russia could change the West’s calculus over the conflict.
“Of course, everybody hopes that he would not dare do that but … if he uses any weapons of mass destruction then this will be a game changer in the whole thing,” he told the BBC’s Sophie Raworth Sunday, adding that NATO would have to “think seriously what to do because then it starts to be dangerous not only for Europe … but the whole…