Ukrainian forces target Russian general accused of war crimes

A bomb was placed in an electric scooter, with an estimated force equivalent to about 280 grams of TNT, resulting in the death of General Igor Kirillov in Moscow. The remotely detonated bomb exploded on Tuesday, 17th December, in the morning Greenwich Mean Time, and, apart from Kirillov, his driver also died in the explosion.

The Security Service of Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack. The Ukrainians emphasised simultaneously that Igor Kirillov, since 2017 holding the position of commander of the Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defence Forces of the Russian Federation, was - according to Kyiv - a legitimate target.

According to the SBU, he is a war criminal, responsible for the use of chemical weapons by Russians. It is worth noting that Igor Kirillov was also the author of numerous false accusations against Ukraine.

According to information shared by him with the media during official appearances, Ukraine - in cooperation with the United States - was preparing biological weapons in the form of mosquitoes carrying various diseases.

According to Kirillov, Ukrainians also blew up a power plant and a dam in Nova Kakhovka (in reality, this was done by Russians). Flooding the Dnieper valley, according to him, was supposed to create an optimal environment for the development of an "army of mosquitoes." The Russian general also accused Ukrainians of building a nuclear "dirty bomb" and planning to blow up a nuclear power plant in Kursk.

Are Ukrainian accusations against Russians regarding the use of chemical weapons true?

On the international stage, the issue of chemical weapons is governed by two agreements. The first is the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (the earlier Washington Treaty of 1922 expired in 1938).

The protocol was signed after the tragic experiences of World War I, where both sides killed each other using increasingly effective combat gases as the war years progressed. Contrary to popular belief, the first use of chemical weapons was not by Germany in 1914, but by France, violating the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.

The second binding document is the Chemical Weapons Convention, signed in Paris in 1993 and in effect from 1997. It is an international treaty signed by almost every country in the world. Only Egypt, North Korea, and South Sudan, as well as Israel, which signed the treaty but has not ratified it, opted out of the global agreement.

Among the treaty's signatories are both Russia and Ukraine.

The use of chemical weapons brings to mind terrifying images entrenched during World War I, when the warring sides used, alongside choking and irritating agents like chlorine, phosgene, or hydrogen cyanide, also burning (necrotizing) agents like mustard gas or lewisite.

Even after World War I, despite signed agreements, chemical weapons were still developed, creating newer, even more deadly nerve agents: G-series (sarin, soman, or tabun), V-series (VX, VG, VR), and modern compounds developed in the 1970s in the USSR (novichoks).

In more recent contemporary times, both sides of the Iran-Iraq war used chemical weapons (mustard gas, sarin, tabun), as well as Iraq against its own Kurdish citizens (Operation Anfal, considered genocide by some countries). It was during this time that "Chemical Ali," a cousin of Saddam Hussein responsible for these actions, earned his nickname.

Chemical weapons were also used multiple times by both sides of the Syrian civil war.

American actions in Vietnam, where a compound called Agent Orange was sprayed over the jungle to destroy vegetation, are also considered chemical weapons use. The side effects of its use led to numerous disorders, deformations, and genetic diseases that appeared massively among both the Vietnamese population and, to a lesser extent, American soldiers who had contact with Agent Orange.

Some sources consider white phosphorus, commonly used as an incendiary agent, as a chemical weapon. Due to its specific nature, this agent causes very severe injuries beyond ordinary burns when in contact with human skin.

In Ukraine, white phosphorus was used by both sides of the conflict from the very beginning of the hostilities. The legal controversy may not lie in its use but rather in its use contrary to international law (using white phosphorus in built-up areas is considered a war crime, as practised by Israel in Gaza and Russia in Ukraine).

In 2024, incendiary agents as weapons began to be used more extensively by Ukrainians, attacking Russians using "dragon drones" – unmanned aircraft dropping burning thermite on enemy positions.

A particularly publicised case of chemical weapons use in Ukraine is not the use of incendiary agents, but rather the large-scale use of chloropicrin by Russians. This substance causes tearing, coughing, nausea, and difficulty breathing.

Chloropicrin was first used as a combat agent by Germans during World War I. Its use was intended to induce vomiting in enemy soldiers, thus forcing them to remove their gas masks and exposing them to simultaneously used lethal combat gases.

Chloropicrin, in terms of its mode of action, is similar to agents used by the police to disperse demonstrations. However, military agents are much stronger than agents intended for civilian control. It is worth emphasising that chloropicrin is not a banned agent – it is commonly used, among other things, as a battlefield simulation agent.

The RN reagent is used to simulate a chemical contamination scenario – it is deployed in special chambers to achieve the desired concentration. Under the supervision of an instructor and a physician, soldiers practise mask application and operations in such conditions.

Although chloropicrin is not a banned agent, its use as a weapon is prohibited. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, chloropicrin is being used in the form of K-51 chemical grenades with characteristic bright plastic casings. Its use was already noted during the Donbas secession in 2014, and reports of chloropicrin being used as a combat agent began to surface in the autumn of 2022.

Confirmation came a few months later when in March 2023, Ukrainians shot down the first Russian drone carrying a K-51 grenade. Since then, the number of recorded incidents began to grow by hundreds – after a year, there were over a thousand, and with each month, this number continues to increase.

Russians use K-51 grenades as a combat agent to force Ukrainians out of occupied positions.

Although short-term contact with chloropicrin causes annoying but not life-threatening tearing, coughing, or breathing difficulties, prolonged exposure has much more severe consequences. Chloropicrin then causes respiratory tract burns, pulmonary oedema, and loss of consciousness, and skin contact can lead to burns. Inhaled in large doses, it can be fatal.