Telegraph investigation reveals those on front line are being exposed to gases banned during wartime
Russian troops are carrying out a systematic campaign of illegal chemical attacks against Ukrainian soldiers, according to a Telegraph investigation.
The Telegraph spoke to a number of Ukrainian soldiers deployed in positions across the front line who detailed how their positions have been coming under near daily attacks from small drones, mainly dropping tear gas but also other chemicals.
The use of such gas, which is known as CS and commonly used by riot police, is banned during wartime under the Chemical WeaponsConvention.
Ihor, the commander of a Ukrainian reconnaissance team who is deployed near the front line city of Chasiv Yar, in Donetsk Oblast, told The Telegraph: “Nearly every position in our area of the front was getting one or two gas grenades dropped on them a day.”
Important legal context: the origin of this Geneva ban is not only that gas weapons are atrocious, but that your foe might doesn’t know what gas has been fired and may reply to CS with gnarlier chemical weapons. The treaty also names the issue that the offending forces may, inadvertently or perfidiously, not know or mix up what gas they’re sending downrange.
This is a big fuckin’ deal in the current conflict. Russia uses a near-identical gas grenade for both CS and nerve gas, in Soviet era crates and stockpiles handled by the hard-luck HIMARS catchers in their logistics chain. If they fuck that up or a pissed off Buryat conscript wants vengeance via sabotage, a whiff of bad-boy gas on the wrong wind could make things extremely spicy.
I like how colloquial this got over the course of reading.
Of course they are 😕 God, they just have no shame. How will they pay for these war crimes?
Russia and Israel are really competing on who can do more war crimes.
Russia doesn’t stand a chance.
Sure, they can try, but their soldiers are still asshole humans at the end of the day.
If they manage to occupy Ukraine they’ll probably win the warcrime game but yea currently they can just torture and kill POWs and try to bomb civilians from far away. At the start of the war they were definitely winning on war crimes with the civilian mass graves.
I think what Russia is banking on is the rise of the global far-right, where the newly emerging far-right will remove “political correctness” from war, and also Russia is pretty infamous for information control, so they can just say “Ukronazis did it” or something like that until everyone accepts that as a hard fact.
You misspelled “Hamas” there. Russia and Hamas have been having quite a competition. Last time I checked they’re still raping hostages to death.
Hamas would have to commit 20 x October 7ths in order to achieve the cruelty Israel willingly carried out among civilians of Gaza—and aid workers—half of the dead being women and children.
Your response? Something-something, “ends justify the means”?
Tear gas is very tame. This really isn’t the case to make a big deal out of.
Israel has been tear gassing Gaza and the West bank for years but they also committed a gazillion white phosphorus chemical attacks in Gaza and Lebanon which are far more dangerous chemicals. Didn’t see the Telegraph using “chemical weapon” headlines for that one.
Questions and Answers on Israel’s Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza and Lebanon
Human Rights Watch has determined based on verified video and witness accounts that Israeli forces used white phosphorus in military operations in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023, respectively. The videos show multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border.
White phosphorus, which can be used as a smokescreen or a weapon, has the potential to cause civilian harm due to the severe burns it causes and its lingering long-term effects on survivors. Its use in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law that parties to the conflict take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. It also highlights the need to reexamine the status and adequacy of Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), currently the only international law dedicated to governing incendiary weapons.
