The United States and United Kingdom this year placed sanctions on Russia for its use of the chemical weapon chloropicrin against troops in Ukraine, months before Igor Kirillov was killed in Moscow on Tuesday.
In May, the US State Department assessed that Russia had used chloropicrin – a riot control agent first used in World War I – against Ukrainian forces, which it said was in violation of the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to which Russia is a signatory.
“Russia has used riot control agents as a method of warfare in Ukraine, also in violation of the CWC. The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident, and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield,” the State Department said.
Chloropicrin — an irritant that affects the eyes, skin, throat and lungs — was manufactured for use as a tear gas during the trench warfare of World War I, but was banned under the CWC in 1993.
In October, the UK sanctioned Kirillov himself, saying he was “responsible for helping deploy” chemical weapons on the battlefields of Ukraine.
“Russian forces have openly admitted to using hazardous chemical weapons on the battlefield, with widespread use of riot control agents and multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin – first deployed on the battlefields of WW1,” the UK’s Foreign Office said.
