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Russia’s repeated references to chemical and biological weapons is raising alarm over the country's potential use of the weapons.
Experts are suggesting that if Russia's military becomes bogged down around besieged cities, President Vladimir Putin could choose to use chemical weapons, which proved so effective ending sieges in Syria.
While Mr Putin has already raised the threat of nuclear warfare, a foreign ministry spokeswoman took the unusual step of highlighting what she described as Moscow's concerns over Ukraine biological sites.
Russia said on Wednesday that the presence of biological laboratories in Ukraine under American leadership were a direct threat to Russia
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A Ukrainian serviceman walks past the vertical tail fin of a Russian Su-34 bomber lying in a damaged building in Kharkiv, Ukraine. AP Photo -
An apartment building damaged after shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine. AP Photo -
A woman puts her head in her hands as she sits on a cot in a shelter, set up for displaced persons fleeing Ukraine, inside a school gymnasium in Przemysl, Poland. AP Photo -
Belarussian and suspected Russian helicopters on the flight line at Machulishchy Air Base outside Minsk, Belarus. AP Photo -
Children look on as people fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine shelter in a school, in Drohobych, Ukraine. Reuters -
Families eat in the shelter. Reuters -
A woman looks out from a building damaged by Russian shelling in Mykolaiv, 100 kilometres away from Odesa, western Ukraine. AFP -
A wounded Ukrainian man waits in the corridor of the central hospital of Mykolaiv. AFP -
An elderly woman is carried in a shopping cart after being rescued from Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. AP -
A woman reacts as a train carrying children from Kyiv's Central Children's Hospital leaves the Ukrainian capital on its way to Lviv. Reuters -
A girl sits in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine. AP -
An elderly woman is coated in snow as she sits in a wheelchair after being rescued from Irpin. AP -
Belarusian volunteers take part in military exercises at the Belarusian Company base in Kyiv. AP -
Lessa, left, director of a nursery school turned into a refugee shelter, cries as she hugs Olega, who arrived from Kyiv with her baby, near Lviv. EPA -
Ukrainians pass a damaged bridge as they flee from Irpin. AP -
A man carries an elderly woman as people continue to leave Irpin. AP -
A soldier stands on a barricade made of sandbags in central Odesa, Ukraine. Reuters -
A charred Russian tank and captured tanks in the Sumy region. Reuters -
People rest at a temporary shelter for Ukrainian refugees in Przemysl, Poland. AFP -
Ukraine's ambassador to the Netherlands, Maksym Kononenko, third right, and his wife Tetiana Doroshenko, fourth left, attend a meeting of members of the Ukrainian community with Dutch King Willem-Alexander, third left, and Queen Maxima, second left, to discuss the situation in Ukraine, in The Hague. EPA -
A Ukrainian soldier looks at the destruction after shelling in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv. AFP -
A refugee holds her dog as they wait for trains to Poland in Lviv, Ukraine. Reuters -
A woman ties ribbons in Ukrainian national flag colours in a girl's hair as people wait at a refugee assistance centre in Prague, Czech Republic. EPA -
A Ukrainian soldier carries an elderly woman crossing the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv. AP -
Lena, who had never left Ukraine before fleeing into Moldova, feeds Dasha, 3, soon after crossing the border. Erin Clare Brown for The National -
Refugees without immediate plans to move further inland can stay the night in tents set up on Moldova's side of the border. Erin Clare Brown for The National -
Tatiana and her son wait for a van that will carry them from the Moldovan border to Chisinau. Erin Clare Brown for The National -
Each night, the Palanca refugee camp in Moldova feeds up to 300 people who arrive with no onward plans. Erin Clare Brown for The National -
People pass a damaged bridge while fleeing the town of Irpin, close to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. AP -
A Ukrainian soldier stands guard next to a church in Irpin. EPA -
A firefighter holds the baby of a Ukrainian refugee at the border in Romania. AP -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks in Kyiv. Reuters -
A Ukrainian soldier at a checkpoint in Kyiv. AP -
Ukrainian activist Ihor Mazur, left, a veteran of the war in the country's east, looks at a night-vision device in Kyiv. AP -
Ambassadors attend a UN Security Council meeting on threats to international security after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in New York. Reuters -
Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya holds a paper with an image of Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as he addresses the Security Council in New York. Reuters -
A road sign put up in support of Mr Zelenskyy outside Russia's embassy in Washington. AFP -
Ukrainian refugees at the train station in Lviv, western Ukraine. EPA -
Lethal and non-lethal Ukrainian aid is loaded on to a plane bound for Poland by Canadian soldiers in Trenton, Ontario. Reuters -
Volunteers carry medical aid and necessities at a train station in Lviv. EPA -
Everton players wear T-shirts in support of Ukraine as they warm up for an English Premier League football match against Tottenham Hotspur. AP -
A residential building damaged by Russian shelling in Chernihiv, Ukraine. Reuters -
A man walks past a checkpoint in heavy snow in Lviv. Getty -
A man fleeing fighting in Irpin waits to cross a river after Russian forces entered the city. Getty -
Soldiers assist Irpin residents underneath a damaged bridge as they flee. Getty -
Ukrainian civilians who volunteered to join the Territorial Defence Forces take part in a training exercise in Odesa after Russia's invasion. Reuters -
Men carry a body to a lorry as people flee from the frontline town of Irpin. EPA -
A Ukrainian police officer runs with a child as the sound of shelling echoes nearby in Irpin. AP -
Parents and children struggle to board a train in Lviv. AP
“The US administration is responsible for the current events and must provide details of what it was doing in Ukraine,”, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Washington should explain the programmes, she said.
The press briefing could be a precursor to Russia claiming it has been attacked by biological weapons, giving justification to use them in response.
Hamish de Bretton Gordon, a chemical warfare specialist, said this could be preparing the ground for their use. “The Russians talking about biological weapons in these laboratories that they claim the Americans are funding seems that they are preparing the battlefield for false flag attacks,” he told The National. “That will then justify them using any weapons they've got.”
In a briefing to media on Wednesday Western security officials also agreed with the assessment that a poison attack could happen. "We've got good reason to be concerned about possible use of non-conventional weapons partly because we've seen what has happened in other theatres for example, in Syria, partly because we see a bit of setting-the-scene for that in the false flag claims that are coming out and other indications as well, so it is serious."
In Aleppo and Idlib, Syrian forces were responsible for a series of indiscriminate chlorine attacks that poisoned people sheltering in bunkers. Similarly, phosphorous incendiary devices were fired into urban areas causing infernos that were impossible to escape. Both forms of attack cause horrific injuries and death.
After Aleppo had held out for four years against the regime's conventional bombardment, the Syrian armed forces in 2016 spent 13 days dropping 100 kilogram or 50kg barrel bombs packed with liquid chlorine into the rubble.
Chlorine is a heavier-than-air gas, so it sank underground causing people to either choke to death or be forced to the surface where they were shot or captured.
White phosphorous munitions were also regularly used against Syrian opposition in Idlib as part of a scorched earth policy
“We've seen some horrific injuries in Syria where children have been horrendously burnt by this stuff,” Mr de Bretton Gordon said. “If you get it on your skin, it burns terribly and water makes it burn with even greater ferocity. Similarly, chlorine just sinks underground, getting into all the nooks and crannies where people are hiding.”
He questioned whether Mr Putin would do something “as rudimentary as chlorine”, but he did point to other Russian weapons. “We understand that the Russians have a nerve agent programme around Novichok, which is incredibly toxic, so air-dropped bombs full of Novichok would have the same effect.”
There was also a possibility that the Russian GRU, the foreign intelligence service, would try cause terror across Europe using Novichok, something Gen David Richards highlighted in The National on Tuesday.
“Is Putin going to have qualms about using it for his great war in Ukraine? I just don't think he will,” Mr de Bretton Gordon said.
He agreed that Russian agents could conduct similar operations to the Novichok poisoning as it did in Salisbury in 2018, killing one person and seriously injuring four others.
“Just one molecule of Novichok can kill a person and a quarter of an eggcup contains millions of molecules,” he said. “It is incredibly toxic, if inhaled death is near instantaneous.” He said that it was four times deadlier than the sarin used by Saddam Hussein to slaughter 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988.
“If things go very badly for Russia in Ukraine I think absolutely the Russians will wage this type of war and the GRU are in many places in Europe,” he said. “And we know the Russians favour irregular weapons such as polonium and Novichok to cause terror among populations.”
