Russia inherited from the USSR one of the largest stocks of chemical weapons in the world. Subsequently, Moscow acceded to the international Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and reported on the destruction of toxic stocks, and, despite this, the intelligence of Western countries has evidence that Russia still stores some of the remnants, and probably continues to develop such substances, like, for example, “Novichok”, according to TSN .

Russia used chemical weapons for the first time 20 years ago against civilians. In Moscow in October 2002, Chechen fighters seized the theater where the performance “Nord-Ost” was held. There were more than 900 hostages, and the terrorists demanded an end to the war in Chechnya and the withdrawal of Russian troops from there. The authorities did not negotiate with them, and after three days of holding the hostages, the Russian security forces stormed the building. But before that, a gas was sprayed in the theater that poisoned everyone who was there.

Not everyone was lucky to survive – most of the deaths of Nord-Ost did not occur at the hands of terrorists, but from gas. According to official figures, 130 people died in the theater on Dubrovka, according to the relatives of the victims – 174. There could have been much fewer of them, but the security forces did not allow the doctors to evacuate the poisoned hostages for a long time and refused to say what kind of gas they used. So the doctors didn’t know which antidote to use. Later, the FSB stated that it was a gas based on fentanyl, a narcotic substance a hundred times stronger than morphine. But what it really was is still unknown. This information is still classified as “secret” in Russia.

What followed was gruesome footage from Syria, where Putin-backed dictator Bashar al-Assad used chemical attacks on civilians dozens of times. Sarin, chlorine and other poisons were sprayed from planes in areas over which the Assad regime lost control after the outbreak of the uprising, dubbed the “Arab Spring”. By intervening in the conflict, Russia did not just provide Assad with its military aviation, Moscow actually led the military operations of the Assadites. This was boasted in his article by General Dvornikov, who now leads the invasion of Ukraine and later commanded Russian troops in Syria. By promising the world community to stop Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria, the Russians have indeed covered up the traces of these attacks.

“In Idlib, Russian troops bombed those locations where chemical weapons were used. They acted in concert. There, one general became famous, he personally sat at the helm of the aircraft, dropped this barrel with chlorine or another substance, and then the Russians cleaned it up with ordinary bombs, ”the military says.

Russia tried to cover up chemical attacks in Syria and on international platforms. The Assad regime and the Russians controlled the admission of international experts at their own discretion. And in 2017, Russia finally blocked the investigation by vetoing it in the UN Security Council.

Two scientific institutes in Russia itself have been working on the development of toxic substances since 2010, according to the Belingket investigation. The Signal Science Center, which is officially involved in the formulation of sports drinks, modernizes and even patents nerve poisons. The nanoencapsulation technology developed there packs the poison into a shell of another substance, making it difficult to detect. Investigators believe that opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with this substance. The Russian military intelligence officers who tried to poison defector Sergei Skripach in Salisbury with Novichok also turned out to be linked to the two secret institutions.

Anything from their chemical arsenal, the Russians can use in Ukraine. Such an attempt can be considered the spraying of an unknown poison from a drone, from which three defenders of Mariupol suffered.

But most likely, military experts believe, the Russian military will not philosophize with complex poisons, but will use the experience of the Syrian executioner Dvornikov and use some kind of industrial substance so that they can disown the accusations and attribute everything to a random man-made disaster.

“It will be, like in Syria, some kind of dual-use substance. Vapors of chlorine or even barrels of chlorine. And it will be possible to tell for a long time that they did not use military chemicals, ”experts say.

The Russians have already fired at nuclear facilities in Ukraine: the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the Physics and Technology Institute in Kharkov. They also fell into a tank with ammonia and twice into tanks with nitrogen in the Luhansk region. Ukrainian cities in the east have already been shelled many times with phosphorus and thermobaric munitions, also prohibited types of munitions. And British intelligence is warning Ukraine that the Russians are considering a chemical attack under a false flag. To then lay on the mythical nationalists or Ukrainian troops.

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