Russia ‘plotting chemical attack’
‘Serious concern’ in West that Putin’s invasion could reach new severity with Syrian-style assault, after air strike hits maternity hospital during ceasefire
VLADIMIR PUTIN is plotting to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, Western officials fear, after his air force bombed a maternity hospital in a “depraved” attack that shocked the world.
There is now “serious concern” that the Russian president will order an “utterly horrific” attack using chemical or biological weapons as Moscow yesterday ramped up claims that Kyiv is planning to deploy them in battle.
It comes after Mr Putin was accused of “crossing the line of humanity” following an air strike on a children’s hospital during a ceasefire in the besieged city of Mariupol.
Boris Johnson described the attack on Hospital No 3 as “depraved” and said Britain would step up its supplies of weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces.
Pregnant women were carried out of the building on stretchers, while others looked on in a daze at the destroyed building and a huge bomb crater in the grounds outside.
A video revealed wrecked wards, collapsed walls, rubble covering medical equipment and shattered glass. The footage showed a cot, children’s beds and toys, covered in ash and debris.
Women, children and medics were initially said to be trapped and Dmitry Gurin, a Ukrainian MP, told the BBC that there were “a lot of dead and wounded women. We don’t know about children and newborns yet”.
However, local officials later reported that 17 staff had been injured but no one had been killed. Most of the pregnant women were hiding in the basement at the time of the strike.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, again called on the West to “close the skies” after the strike, reigniting demands to impose a no-fly zone over his country and send fighter jets.
“You have the power but you seem to be losing the humanity,” he said.
Mr Zelensky earlier accused the US and Poland of playing “ping pong” with the lives of Ukrainians after the apparent collapse of a proposal to send MIG fighter jets to his air force.
The Pentagon last night said it would oppose any Nato plan to deliver fighter planes. It was too “high risk,” said spokesman John Kirby.
Vadim Boichenko, the mayor of Mariupol, said the air strike on the southern port city was a “meaningless act of evil”.
“How can it be explained? How can it be described? It can’t. It is cynicism and genocide,” he added.
Hours before the bombing, Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesman, claimed Ukrainian fighters had ejected patients and staff from the maternity hospital before setting up firing positions. She did not provide any evidence.
Mr Putin has become increasingly frustrated by the resistance mounted by Ukraine, and the West now fears he will turn to extreme measures to finish the invasion he launched last month.
Yesterday RIA Novosti, the state-owned Russian news agency, claimed that 80 tonnes of ammonia was delivered to the village of Zolochiv, near Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, by “Ukrainian nationalists”.
The report quoted Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Russian defence ministry spokesman, alleging that Ukraine was “preparing a provocation with the use of poisonous substances … in order to then accuse Russia of using chemical weapons”.
Western analysts believe the reports indicate that Mr Putin is preparing to order the use of chemical weapons in his most lethal “false flag” operation to date. One Western official said: “I think we’ve got good reason to be concerned about possible use of non-conventional weapons, partly because of what we’ve seen has happened in other theatres, for example what we’ve seen in Syria, and partly because we’ve seen a bit of setting the scene for that in the false flag claims that are coming out, and other indications as well. So, it’s a serious concern for us.”
Yesterday’s claims about ammonia follow allegations from Russia earlier this week that it had found evidence of Ukraine “concealing traces of a military biological programme implemented with funding from the United States”.
Ms Zakharova said Ukraine has been secretly developing “highly hazardous pathogens of plague, anthrax, rabbitfever, cholera and other lethal diseases”.
The Ministry of Defence has also said there had been a notable “intensification of Russian accusations that Ukraine is developing nuclear or biological weapons” since the invasion began.
There are parallels with Moscow’s groundwork before a chemical attack on Douma in Syria, when Russia used its state media to spread allegations that Syrian rebels were preparing chemical weapons with the help of the West.
Bob Seely, the Tory MP, said such an attack on Ukraine would be disastrous. He said: “You can’t live in the Kyiv and Kharkiv metros when you have chemi- cal weapons being used, because chlorine and sarin are heavier than air.
“They will seep and flow like water into basements and suffocate those people. Putin’s risk threshold is higher. His willingness to endure civilian and military casualties is almost out of our comprehension.”
The Ministry of Defence yesterday said that Russia had admitted firing a thermobaric weapons system in Ukraine. However, a Pentagon spokesman said it had “no indication” that the devastating bombs had been used so far.
The UK has already sent Stinger antiaircraft weapons and NLAW anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, but yesterday the Government announced it would also be sending supersonic Starstreak surface-to-air missiles, the most advanced short range anti-aircraft system in the world. Mr Johnson said: “There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenceless.
“The UK is exploring more support for Ukraine to defend against air strikes and we will hold Putin to account for his terrible crimes.”
Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, called the attack “absolutely abhorrent, reckless and appalling”, but she and Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, rejected Mr Zelensky’s renewed calls for a Nato-patrolled no-fly zone over his country.
Mr Zelensky tweeted: “Mariupol. Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror?
“Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”
Ms Truss said “the best way to help protect the skies is through anti-air weaponry which the UK is now going to be supplying”, while Mr Blinken said a no-fly zone would put US pilots in “direct conflict” with Russia, adding: “Our goal is to end the war, not to expand it.”
A Polish proposal to hand its MIG-29 fighter jets to a US military base in Germany, with the expectation that they would be handed to Ukrainian pilots, was dismissed in Washington.
Allies fear that such a move would risk provoking a wider conflict. While the short-range weapons currently being sent to Ukraine could only ever be used for defence, fighter jets are a different proposition as they have the capability to attack long-range targets.