Ukraine accuses Russia of using tear gas in trenches
KYIV/DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (Reuters) – The Ukrainian infantryman, call sign “Ray,” said he quickly pulled on his gas mask after a Russian drone flying above his trench on the eastern front dropped a tear-gas grenade.
“It’s like pepper spray,” he told Reuters of the attack he said he experienced in January. “It makes your eyes tear up. It’s not lethal, but it disturbs and knocks you out. It makes it very difficult to carry out your duties once you’ve inhaled it.”
The Ukrainian military says Russia has ramped up its illegal use of riot-control agents on the front to try to clear trenches as it begins to make bigger advances in the east more than two years since its full-scale invasion.
Riot-control agents such as tear gas are banned on the battlefield by the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which Russia and Ukraine are signatories to.
While civilians can usually escape from tear gas used to break up riots or protests in cities, soldiers stuck in trenches without gas masks must either flee under enemy fire or risk suffocating on the gas.
Col. Serhii Pakhomov, acting head of the military’s atomic, biological, and chemical defense forces, said Kyiv had recorded around 900 uses of riot-control agents by Russia over the past six months out of more than 1,400 since the February 2022 invasion.
Russia mainly used K-51, VOH, and RH-VO hand grenades loaded with CS, CN, and other gases, he told Reuters in an interview. Ukraine’s military previously alleged that Russian forces also used chloropicrin, which was used as poison gas in World War I.
Allegations about Russia’s use of grenades with CN gas use unconfirmed data, Russia’s embassy in The Netherlands, where the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is based, said on X in January. Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Moscow previously accused Ukrainian forces of using chemical weapons, something Kyiv denies. Reuters has not been able to independently verify the use of banned chemical substances by either side.
UKRAINE CONDUCTS GAS-MASK DRILLS
Five hundred Ukrainian troops have required medical help after exposure to toxic substances on the battlefield, and at least one soldier died after suffocating on tear gas, Pakhomov said.
“In addition to demoralization, the person loses physical capabilities,” he said. “He can’t see, he can’t breathe, everything is irritated. Yes, it is temporary, but it is the very moment the enemy can use to take over this position or another.”
The Ukrainian military is distributing gas masks and conducting drills to prepare soldiers to defend their position during such attacks.
Gas masks help to protect troops from almost all combat poisons, but the length of exposure could impact their effectiveness, instructors told Reuters at one drill near Kharkiv.
Russian forces, which have occupied 18% of Ukrainian territory, are advancing slowly but steadily in the east after months of deadly fighting.
Volodymyr, 37, a doctor at a medical stabilization point in the Donetsk region, said gas-attack cases have picked up recently, and he was seeing an average of two soldiers a week.
They complain about gas attacks of varying characteristics – colorless, blue, or green – and with a strong chemical smell, he said.
“The symptoms – it looks like irritation... it’s like tear gas or something like that,” Volodymyr said, unable to identify the exact substance.
Natalia Khovanets, 53, a head nurse at a Ukrainian army medical unit in a forested part of the mostly occupied region of Luhansk, told Reuters they had treated soldiers who had been hit with tear-gas grenades dropped by a Russian drone.
“[The symptoms we saw were] bitterness in the patients’ mouths, dizziness,” she said, adding that “these are mild symptoms. That meant we could manage treating them on our own.”
An official with the OPCW, which investigates alleged use of chemicals as weapons, told Reuters it had received no request for an investigation or technical assistance related to the alleged use of banned chemicals in the war.
“However, the use of riot-control agents as weapons by Russian troops was widely debated” at the organization’s recent meetings, the official said.
The task of documenting each case of alleged toxic chemicals is within the purview of special groups within the Ukrainian military that collect evidence and contaminated ground samples for field labs before giving them to Ukraine’s security services.
The 1,400 recorded cases was likely a considerable underestimate because heavy artillery fire and fighting often prevented the groups from visiting trenches, making documentation and accountability harder to achieve, Pakhomov said.