Threat of chemical terrorism by Ukrainian Nationalists very real: Russian Foreign Ministry

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Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said as reported by Sputnik that Moscow considers the threat of chemical terrorism by Ukrainian nationalists and the military to be very real.

"We consider very real the threat of chemical terrorism by fascist nationalists, operating under the patronage of the current Kiev regime, and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under their control," Syromolotov said.

"The high probability of such a scenario implementation is conditioned by multiple chemical provocations organized by armed extremist groups controlled by the United States and its NATO allies during the Syrian conflict," he added.

Syromolotov cited the staged provocation in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, as well as plans for chemical provocations in Donbass devised by the Volodymyr Zelensky team.

"We will not be surprised if similar accusations are made against us in relation to the recent events at the Zarya plant (the town of Rubezhnoye), where militants undertook to blow up tanks with nitric acid so that the resulting cloud of toxic substances was carried by the wind to the settlement of Kudryashovka, liberated from them," he said.

"We do not rule out that such terrorist attacks will be repeated, since, according to some estimates, about 40,000 tonnes of highly toxic substances remain at this enterprise, including nitric, sulfuric and hydrochloric acids, as well as ammonia," Syromolotov concluded.

Russian armed forces have no chemical warfare agents

In response to US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price's claims about the possibility of Moscow using chemical weapons in Ukraine, the Russian Embassy in the United States stated that the Russian Armed Forces do not have chemical warfare agents because all stockpiles have been destroyed.

"We call on Washington to stop spreading disinformation. Instead, colleagues should intensify the process of chemical demilitarization of their country. The United States remains the only state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention that has not fulfilled the international commitments it made. The American arsenal of weapons of this type poses a real threat to humanity," the Embassy said on Telegram.

It is worth mentioning that chemical weapons production, use, and stockpiling are banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

In early March 2022, Russia warned that Ukraine was developing biological weapons in laboratories run in cooperation with the United States. 

Russia launched its special military operation for several reasons, including NATO's eastward expansion. Other reasons were the Ukrainian shelling of Donbass and the killing of the people of the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic, in addition to Moscow wanting to "denazify" and demilitarize Ukraine.