Moscow believes that Ukraine may be cooking up an “anti-Russian false flag operation with the use of Western-made poisonous substances” with the aim of pinning the blame on Moscow for the usage of such chemical weapons, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cautioned.
“Quite possibly, another anti-Russian provocation is being set up employing Western-made poisonous substances in order to launch a new campaign within the UN's structures and throughout the global media to accuse our country of the allegedly deliberate use of chemical weapons,” she warned.
20 December 2023, 05:00 GMT
Earlier, Sputnik reported that Russia had sent 23 notes to the secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concerning Ukraine's use of toxic substances as chemical weapons. However, the OPCW was reluctant to send any of its experts to the special military operation zone.
In August, a high-ranking Russian military doctor said that the Kiev regime had used shells containing white phosphorous in Zaporozhye. This toxic substance causes severe burns and acute poisoning, as well as tissue necrosis. Moscow believes that Western countries are supplying Ukraine with such noxious chemicals.
This winter, a video emerged on the Internet showing the Ukrainian military loading canisters onto drones. Experts suggested that these vessels could likely contain phosgene, a substance explicitly prohibited by the United Nations' Chemical Weapons Convention.