Russian forces may use chemical weapons in Ukraine and it’s up to our world's leaders and countries like New Zealand to try and deter them from it.
That's the message from a world authority on chemical weapons.
Hamish De Bretton-Gordon knows what chlorine gas can do.
The former British and NATO commander is considered a world authority on chemical warfare.
“I saw the four-year sieges of Aleppo being fought conventionally but then just 13 days of using chlorine, the original chemical weapon from the first world war, broke that siege.”
Footage of a chemical attack in Syria during the height of the nation’s civil war showed children and adults choking and vomiting, writhing in agony.
And as the war rages in Ukraine, Gordon is worried history will repeat itself.
“What Putin is trying to do in Ukraine is terrify the civilian populations into surrender, and sadly chemical weapons are really good at doing that."
Russia has already demonstrated the capacity to produce, and willingness to use, deadly and sophisticated nerve agents and weapons using common industrial chemicals to provide deniability.
“They would more likely use a toxic industrial chemical because it would be very deniable - there are thousands of tonnes of chlorine in Ukraine," says Gordon.
“The Russians have attacked an ammonia factory north of Kyiv, creating a toxic cloud and only yesterday there was a factory bombed in the Donbas that put thousands of tonnes of nitrogen dioxide into the air.”
And as the invasion grinds to a halt and Russian forces retreat from the capital, Gordon says the mounting setbacks may increase the chance that chemical weapons are used as an option of desperation by Putin's regime.
“Some of my Ukrainian friends are convinced that the international community will act demonstrably if chemical weapons are used. In my discussions with some politicians - particularly in this country, that perhaps is not the feeling here.”
“Decrying the use of chemical and biological weapons I think is hugely important.”
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