By Patrick Norén
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed that 2-Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile gas – known as CS – was used in Ukraine on September 20, 2024.
In a report published on November 18, the OPCW wrote that they had deployed a team to the area where the alleged incident happened, near the village of Illinka, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The village of Illinka is located less than 10km north of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which has been occupied by invading Russian forces since March 2022.
During the Technical Assistance Visit requested by Ukraine, specialists from the OPCW collected “documentation and digital files, testimonies from first-hand witnesses, and received three samples collected by Ukraine: a shell of grenade and two soil samples collected from a trench”.
Analysis at independent laboratories confirmed that the grenade and soil samples collected from the trench near the village of Illinka contained the riot control agent 2-Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile, known as CS.
Riot Control Agents and the Chemical Weapons Convention
The use of riot control agents as a method of warfare is forbidden under Article I of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Noting that both Russia and Ukraine are States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Director-General of the OPCW, Fernando Arias, concluded the report by saying that “it is therefore important now for all States Parties to uphold the norm against chemical weapons.”
The Ukrainian military says they have recorded as many as 4,600 incidents of Russian gas attacks since the beginning of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Colonel Artem Vlasiuk, from the Ukrainian Support Forces’ Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Command, told The Kyiv Independent that 323 such incidents were recorded in October 2024 alone. All except 15 of these attacks involved a gas that was “unidentified”.
Russian drones will often drop gas grenades into Ukrainian trenches and dugouts to force Ukrainian soldiers into open areas, where they will be exposed to further attacks by drones, gunfire, or artillery. However, Ukrainian forces currently lack the hundreds of handheld detectors necessary for identifying the new or mixed gases that Russia has been using and finding a solution to protect their troops.
Vlasiuk told The Kyiv Independent: “We can detect CS, but if the enemy uses something else more complex, newer, or a mix that is similar in composition but not CS, we can’t identify it.”
The Ukrainian Support Forces say that at least three soldiers have been killed by Russian gas attacks, and almost 2,100 soldiers have sought medical care after being targeted. Many Ukrainian soldiers interviewed by The Kyiv Independent say they are only issued with poor quality Soviet-era gas masks, of whose effectiveness they are skeptical, compounding the difficulties presented by insufficient detection and identification technology.
CSP-29 Next Week
The report published by the OPCW comes one week before the start of the 29th Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, taking place in The Hague, the Netherlands. It is therefore highly likely that this landmark announcement will feature significantly during debates at the conference.
One can expect further accusations from Ukraine and its international allies on the one hand, and further denials and counter-accusations from Russia and its own allies, such as Syria and Iran, on the other.
In May 2024, the OPCW had said that both Russia and Ukraine had accused each other of using chemical weapons, but added that “the information provided to the Organization so far by both sides, together with the information available to the Secretariat, is insufficiently substantiated.”
However, the November 18 announcement is the first time that the OPCW has confirmed the use of riot control agents during the Russia-Ukraine war. Yet, the report does not explicitly blame or implicate Russia for perpetrating the September 20 incident.
Despite Russian denials and whataboutism – a tried-and-tested disinformation tactic where Russia will accuse adversaries of committing the same crimes they themselves are committing in an attempt to muddy the waters of the information space – ample evidence of Russia’s use of riot control agents against Ukrainian forces has emerged. This has included Ukrainian forces finding remnants of riot control agents grenades bearing Russian markings.
Meanwhile, the former Commanding Officer of the U.K.’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, has said that “Russian forces are using chemical weapons on an industrial scale”, estimating that as many as 30% of Ukrainian soldiers have come under chemical attack.
Patrick Norén is the Editor of CBNW Magazine.
