Russian forces pushing their grinding offensive in eastern Ukraine "appear to be" resorting to World War I-era chemical weapons in their bid to dislodge Kyiv's defending units, according to the latest battlefield update from the Institute for the Study of War.

Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun, the spokesperson for the Tavria Ukrainian military group operating on the southeastern front line, said on Tuesday that Russian forces had been using "K-51 grenades with chloropicrin" in their attacks on Kyiv's positions.

In May 2024, the United States imposed new sanctions on three Russian government entities and four Russian companies in response to its full-scale war and use of chemical weapons against Ukraine.

Russia is actively using chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military, according to Captain Andrii Rudyk, a representative of the Center for Research of Trophy and Advanced Weapons and Military Equipment of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday that it thwarted a terrorist attack with the use of an analogue of the BZ chemical warfare agent in the Zaporozhye region, adding that three citizens of Ukraine were detained.

Information is the world’s lifeblood. It pulsates in torrents of facts and images. We are swamped with it.

But information can be poison, a dangerous weapon. Disinformation, or organized lying, can be used to wage political warfare. As the historian Thomas Rid wrote in “Active Measures,” his book on the subject, disinformation can weaken a political system that places its trust in truth. “Disinformation operations, in essence, erode the very foundations of open societies,” he wrote.

Russia's state Investigative Committee said on Monday it was examining the alleged use of chemical weapons by Ukrainian forces near the eastern Ukrainian towns of Soledar and Bakhmut.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/without-supplying-evidence-russia-…

February 7, 2023

1-EVIDENCE OF US-FINANCED BIOLOGICAL PROGRAM IN UKRAINE REVEALED BY RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY

Tass, March 06, 2022

https://tass.com/defense/1417951,

2-UKRAINE WORKED ON DEVELOPMENT OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS NEAR RUSSIAN BORDERS – STATEMENT

TASS, March 08, 2022

https://tass.com/politics/1418689

3-RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT URGES US TO REVEAL INFORMATION ABOUT ACTIVITIES OF LABS IN UKRAINE

China, ostensibly neutral on Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, took a significant step into Moscow's camp on Tuesday when a government official repeated a Russian conspiracy theory about the existence of U.S.-funded biological weapons in the country.

At a regular press briefing in Beijing, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, read out a Russian media report about the alleged discovery of a "military biological program" in Ukraine in the days after the large-scale offensive began.