Could Russia use chemical weapons in Ukraine?

VLADIMIR PUTIN has rocketed Kyiv, shelled Kharkiv and bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol in his quixotic and blood-soaked effort to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Some think he may soon resort to worse. “[W]e should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false-]flag operation using them,” warned Jen Psaki, the White House spokeswoman, on March 9th. “I’ll make you one other prediction,” noted Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, a day later. “The stuff that you are hearing about chemical weapons…is straight out of their playbook.”

These warnings came after Russia’s foreign ministry accused Ukraine of operating American-backed chemical- and biological-weapons laboratories—the latest of many such spurious allegations. On December 21st Sergei Shoigu, Mr Putin’s defence minister, warned that 120 American mercenaries were in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and that tanks of chemicals had been delivered there “to commit provocations”. On March 3rd Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, claimed that the Pentagon was worried about losing control of chemical and biological facilities in Ukraine. A week later Russia’s defence ministry said that labs in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa were exploring how to use birds and bats to spread pathogens.