The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed on Nov. 18 that a riot control agent known as CS has been used in Ukraine, as evidence mounts that Russia has scaled up its attacks using chemical weapons in recent months.
The United Nations watchdog OPCW’s first confirmation about the tear gas usage comes as Russia has intensified its use of chemical agents since the beginning of the year to advance forward across Ukraine’s front line.
Russian drones throw gas grenades into dugouts or trenches in an attempt to force Ukrainian soldiers out into the open field, making them easy prey for drone or artillery attacks.
The U.S. and the U.K. have confirmed Russia’s deployment of chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers, slapping sanctions on Russia’s troops of Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense, their chief, Russian Defense Ministry scientific centers, and companies involved.
Uhhh, this implies that infantry on the ground are equipped with like sarin dispensers just ready to go at all times.
Yeah, fair enough, it would be odd for immediate retaliation. However, let me present another scenario. Imagine harassing agents are permitted to be used in war. How long do you think it would take the war industry to develop significantly worse harassing agents than CS, and how much lawyering would end up happening to argue a certain chemical weapon is actually a harassing agent and not something that’s banned? Now that retaliation scenario isn’t that far out of the picture. Force A gets hit with some super harassing agent bordering (or actually) lethal chemical weapons, force B retaliates with mustard gas.
It’s easier to just ban them all.