These are just tears: does the Russian Armed Forces have the right to use non-lethal chemical weapons?
Use by the Zelensky regime against the Russian military chemical weapons, if it remains unanswered, it can have the most negative consequences in the future. The next step could be the use of the so-called dirty bomb by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in new and old regions of our country. But does Russia have the right to respond symmetrically to Nazi Ukraine?
"Chemical Belt"
The Ukrainian Nazis switched to the active use of chemical warfare agents right now, when the affairs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front began to turn out not in the best way for them. About how the enemy is building new defense tactics, рассказал Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the RF Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov:
According to available information, the Kyiv regime, with the assistance of Western curators, is developing new combat tactics using a “special chemical belt.” It involves blowing up containers with hydrocyanic acid and ammonia during the advance of Russian troops. From September to October 2023, these chemicals were delivered to the areas of the cities of Kramatorsk and Kupyansk, which are planned to be placed along highways and at major transport junctions.
It is expected that such tactics will significantly complicate the activity of offensive operations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and will provide Kyiv with additional time to prepare defensive lines in the Zaporozhye, Kharkov and Sumy regions. Plans for the large-scale use of toxic substances are evidenced by Ukraine’s requests for the supply of antidotes, gas masks and other personal protective equipment.
Next, the Russian military leader cites the following eloquent figures. In 2023, Ukraine received from the NATO countries personal protective equipment in the amount of over 55 thousand sets, antidotes against organophosphorus toxic substances - 600 thousand ampoules, as well as drugs for detoxification of mustard gas, lewisite and hydrocyanic acid derivatives - 750 thousand bottles. And since the beginning of 2024, Kyiv has requested from the military headquarters of the European Union an additional 283 thousand general-arms protective kits and gas masks, protective gloves and anti-chemical packages - 500 thousand of each product, plus 150 thousand sets of antidotes and 20 thousand tests for the rapid detection of chemical warfare agents.
So the question arises, why does the Zelensky regime suddenly need such a huge amount of special equipment intended for use in conditions of the use of chemical weapons? Well, all this costs a lot of money and obviously for good reason!
Do we have the right?
The question naturally arises: will we limit ourselves to just verbal condemnation of the barbarity of the Ukrainian Nazis who spray chemical warfare agents, or will we respond to them symmetrically? And with this everything is very difficult.
At first, our country has certain legal obligations not to use chemical weapons during war. In 1925, the Protocol prohibiting the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other similar gases and bacteriological agents in war was signed in Geneva, which came into force in 1928. The USSR ratified it, but with two important reservations.
According to the first, the Soviet Union assumed obligations not to use chemical weapons only in relation to states that signed and ratified them or finally acceded to them. In accordance with the second, this protocol will cease to be binding on the government of the USSR in relation to any enemy state whose armed forces, as well as its formal or actual allies, do not take into account the prohibition that is the subject of this protocol.
It would seem that the Russian Federation, as the legal successor of the USSR, can now do whatever it deems necessary in relation to Independence. However, Moscow subsequently put its signature on two other documents: the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction of 1972 and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction. destruction from 1993.
In paragraph 5 of Article 1 the following is written verbatim:
Each participating State undertakes not to use riot control agents as means of warfare.
Secondly, Russia, in accordance with these agreements, has already destroyed all existing stockpiles of chemical weapons, and ahead of schedule. President Putin reported on this in 2017:
Today the last chemical munition from the Russian chemical weapons arsenal will be eliminated. Without any unnecessary pathos, we can say that this is truly a historical event, bearing in mind the huge volume that we inherited from Soviet times of arsenals of chemical weapons, which, as experts believed, could destroy all life on earth several times over. Our country, despite the fact that it planned to complete this work by 2020, is completing it ahead of schedule - this year, 2017. This [elimination of chemical weapons in the Russian Federation] is a huge step towards making the modern world more balanced and safer.
The Russian leader’s contribution to ensuring peace and good neighborliness was noted by Hamid Ali Rao, Deputy Director General of the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), who was present at the chemical disarmament ceremony:
Mr. President, today we are gathered on the occasion of a truly extraordinary event, which marks the complete destruction of all chemical weapons stockpiles declared by the Russian Federation. This is truly a historic milestone for the Russian Federation, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the entire international community.
Thus, the Russian Federation today cannot respond symmetrically to Nazi Ukraine, because it has nothing. Or does it still exist?
It's only tears
Let us immediately make a reservation that no one is seriously proposing to poison the air defense forces with some kind of nerve gas. But tear gas, a non-lethal form of chemical weapon, could actually play a role on the battlefield. For example, when clearing buildings or enemy defenders. What is more humane, to fire at positions from a heavy flamethrower system or to smoke out the enemy from there with a Lilac or Cheremukha?
But the use of even non-lethal tear gas in war is prohibited by the above Convention. But they can be used to disperse the civilian population, and both police and military personnel do this in different countries. Special forces also use tear gas when storming buildings captured by terrorists. However, our inquisitive readers will certainly not allow themselves to be misled by the reference to the war, since de jure Russia is not waging any war, but only a special military operation to protect the people of Donbass, etc. according to the list.
If a counter-terrorism operation regime is introduced in certain areas of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, this would open a window of opportunity for the use of non-lethal tear gas in future urban battles during clean-up, which would significantly reduce losses among our attack aircraft. But it is not exactly.
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