Chemical weapons would violate international law, NATO boss warns Russia - UPI News
March 20 (UPI) -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday warned Russia that the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine would violate international law.
"Any use of chemical weapons would be a blatant and brutal violation of international law, the ban on the use of chemical weapons," Stoltenberg told NBC's Meet the Press.
"At the same time, we know that Russia has used chemical agents in Europe before, against their own political opponents and Russia has been facilitating and supporting the Assad regime in Syria, where chemical weapons has been used."
Stoltenberg added that NATO must prevent the "very bloody, ugly, horrific conflict" from escalating into a full-fledged war between NATO and Russia which could potentially involve the United States directly.
His comments come after Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN that the United States would "respond aggressively" if Russia were to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
"We are concerned that they may use chemical weapons in Ukraine," she said. "We have been clear, if they escalate to this level, we will respond aggressively to what they are doing."
Russian officials on Saturday tried to deflect from a possible chemical attack by claiming that Ukrainian "nationalists" would use such methods against Russian troops.
Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia's National Defense Management Center, claimed without evidence to Russian state media agency TASS had placed mines in ammonia and chlorine storage facilities.
Russia has been known to plant false flags in apparent attempts to justify its own use of such tactics.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday told CBS that Russian forces were "stalled" in Ukraine in with Putin "moving his forces into a woodchipper."
Russia's Ministry of Defense said Sunday that it had targeted ammunition and fuel depots in Ukraine with hypersonic missiles over the weekend, according to The New York Times. It would be the first time Russia had used such missiles if true, though whether the missiles were hypersonic has not been verified.
Austin said that the use of such missiles would not be a "game-changer" for Russia's outcome in the war.
"I think, again, the reason that he's resorting to using these types of weapons is because he's trying to reestablish some momentum," Austin said. "You kind of question why he would do this. Is he running low on precision-guided munitions?"
The Institute for the Study of War said in a report Saturday that Russian forces continue to make limited advances "but are very unlikely to be able to seize their objectives in this way."
"The doctrinally sound Russian response to this situation would be to end this campaign, accept a possibly lengthy operational pause, develop the plan for a new campaign, build up resources for that new campaign, and launch it when the resources and other conditions are ready," the report reads.
"The Russian military has not yet adopted this approach. It is instead continuing to feed small collections of reinforcements into an ongoing effort to keep the current campaign alive. We assess that that effort will fail."
source: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/03/20/ukraine-nato-boss-warns-russia-chemical-weapons-violate-international-law/7921647797224/
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