Just speculation but...
Russia 'may be ready to use chemical weapons in Ukraine'
Warning comes from experts, with one adding: 'The EU and Nato need to prepare for the (almost) unimaginable'
Moscow may be readying to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, experts have warned, after Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov repeated claims that the US was developing “biological materials” in the Eastern European country.
Mr Lavrov said Moscow had information that the US was “worried it would lose control” over alleged chemical weapons sites in Ukraine, without offering evidence to back up the claims.
Several commentators said the mention of chemical weapons was a "red flag" and that the threat of
use of chemical weapons in Ukraine was now "real".
"The EU and Nato need to prepare for the (almost) unimaginable,” said Prof Theo Farrel, formerly the head of the war studies department at King's College London, in response to Mr Lavrov’s interview with Russian and foreign media.
Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, previously warned that Vladimir Putin would be ready to use Russia’s stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons if he felt his troops were faltering in Ukraine.
“Certainly nothing is off the table with this guy. He's willing to use whatever tools he can to intimidate Ukrainians and the world,” she said.
Concerns over the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine were raised four years to the day since the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, using the Soviet-produced nerve agent Novichok.
A substance from the same family of nerve agents was used to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny two years ago, in an attack believed to have been ordered by the Kremlin.
In 2018 Russia was accused of using a chlorine-based chemical weapon to attack a rebel stronghold in a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital, killing 40 people, and the US has warned that it may resort to similar tactics in Ukraine.
Russia
has always denied the chemical weapons allegations and has instead accused the US of building chemical weapons laboratories in Ukraine and Georgia, another pro-Western former Soviet state.
The US has said that its laboratories in Ukraine and Georgia are focused on human and animal welfare research.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/04/russia-may-ready-use-chemical-weapons-ukraine/
