ByBen Connable
May 15, 2022
Source: The Atlantic Council
Photo Source: Unsplash, Robert Anasch
With Russia’s war in Ukraine foundering, there are increasing fears that Vladimir Putin might unleash chemical or biological weapons on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. How realistic is this scenario?
Putin knows there is a special terror associated with chemical and biological weapons. Ukrainians have good reason to fear their use: the effects are awful. But delivering chem-bio weapons is difficult and dangerous even for well-trained professional soldiers. There is little to suggest Russian troops would be successful.
Chemical weapons like nerve, blistering, and choking agents are designed to kill or maim victims. For example, Russia used Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder political opponents in Salisbury in 2018. Biological agents like ricin and botulism are deadly or incapacitating toxins or diseases. For example, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, an unknown assailant sent weaponized anthrax through the US mail in an unsuccessful effort to kill members of Congress.
I experienced the fear of chemical attack firsthand while examining suspicious unexploded shells during the 1991 Gulf War, and while invading Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003. I never quite knew if my chemical suit or mask were fitted just right, or if a tiny gap had opened up that might have exposed me to unspeakable suffering. Luckily I experienced nothing but false alarms. But even those unfounded fears were sobering.
Others have not been so lucky. Saddam used poison gas to kill thousands of Iranian troops in the Iran-Iraq War. He also deployed chemical weapons to murder thousands of his own people. More recently, Syrian civilians experienced deadly chemical attacks launched by their own Russian-backed government.
Russia almost certainly retains a sizable store of chemical and biological weapons. Moscow’s commitments to destroy the last vestiges of its Soviet-era stockpiles are no more believable than any random story on Russian state media. But having these terrifying weapons and putting them to effective use are two different matters. I see at least three reasons why the use of chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine could go badly wrong for the Russians.
There is little doubt that direct attribution would be unavoidable for any Russian chemical weapon attack in Ukraine. Experts on chem-bio weapons and Russian tactics assume the Russians would try to use a false flag operation to deny responsibility for their attack. They might attempt to make it look like the Ukrainians attacked their own civilians in an effort to discredit Russia, or they might even try to pin the blame on NATO.
This could still be an effective tactic for the Russian domestic audience, but the days of gaslighting Western leaders and reporters are over. Advanced Western surveillance, detection, and forensics will not allow Russia’s armed forces to secretly deploy chem-bio weapons. Russia’s failure to cover up even its most highly classified assassination attempts suggest it would fail even more spectacularly to cover up much larger battlefield attacks.
How can bio weapons impact one's health? Why? Have you been exposed to bio weapons?
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