The United States accused Russia this week of illegally deploying chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine and announced the sanctioning of hundreds of individuals and entities tied to the weapons.
The State Department said that Russia violated the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) by using the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops.
Chloropicrin is a “choking agent” that was commonly used during World War I, The New York Times reported, and is banned from being used in war, according to the treaty that even Russia signed.
The State Department said that the use of the chemical weapons “is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield.”
The sanctions were being enacted against…
