Putin is preparing to unleash a new wave of terror weapons
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The revelation that Russian forces have been making widespread use of CS gas – a chemical banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention – should be a horrific wake up call to the West and Nato that no weapons are off limits for Vladimir Putin.
My experiences of the war in Syria, which included Russian forces, and of the war in Iraq against ISIS, indicate that escalation in the use of these weapons is highly likely. Just this weekend, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was again hit by drones. Further such strikes raise the risk of a catastrophic nuclear incident, with potentially appalling effects for the whole of Europe. It is time for the West to show some steel, and force Putin to back down.
Purely from a military perspective, I can see why Russian forces are using poison chemicals to try and break through the Ukrainian defensive positions. I saw the 4-year “conventional” siege of Aleppo in Syria broken in days of chlorine barrel bomb attacks in December 2016.
Russian and Syrian forces had corralled civilians and rebels in an area of Aleppo and could not break in, as they hid in the rubble and underground. Chlorine, the original chemical weapon, is heavier than air. It sank underground and either killed people or forced them above ground where they were shot or captured.
Again, during the two-year fight with Isis in Iraq, I had the great honour to advise the Iraqi Kurd Peshmerga forces on chemical weapons defence. Isis used chlorine and mustard agent “gas” extensively against the Kurds. I observed a chlorine attack by Isis on the Peshmerga in a town called Gwer near Mosul in April 2016. The Peshmerga are the bravest men and women on the battlefield, but I saw at first hand how paralysing and terrifying chemical weapons are.
All this experience leads me to believe that a leader without morals will turn to these weapons again and again; they are terrifyingly effective. Putin has no morals. We need to act now to rein him in, before the massive Russian offensive predicted to happen in the coming months.
The Russian use of gas against Ukrainian forces has been so effective because their ancient soviet masks are ineffective against this poison. They are left incapacitated, or forced to leave their trenches, making them easy targets for the Russians. We can easily remedy this by giving their forces effective gas masks – something that could well be within the UK’s ability to solve.
Similarly, there are tangible things we can do to prevent a nuclear catastrophe across Europe. There is no military reason for Russian soldiers to be occupying the nuclear power except the implicit threat of deploying it as a weapon. It is past time that the UN secured the site, forcing its way in if need be.
All the triggers for a nuclear and chemical disaster are now in plain sight and even those with their heads deepest in the sand surely cannot fail to see that action must be taken now to prevent a terrifying escalation of this conflict. It is time for Nato to send a warning shot across Putin’s bows and prevent Europe descending into all-out war again.
