Minister Doughty, Sanctions Minister, said:
“Barbaric chemical weapons are supposed to be consigned to
history, and yet Russia continues to deploy them on the
battlefield in Ukraine.
“We will not stand for such callous disregard of the Chemical
Weapons Convention, which is why we are sanctioning a Russian
research institute and two senior Russian military officials at
the heart of Russia's chemical weapons violations, critical to
the transfer and use of these weapons on the battlefield.
“Almost every country on earth, including Russia, has signed up
to the Chemical Weapons Convention – Russia's flagrant
chemical weapons use is evidence of the cruelty at the heart
of Putin's regime.”
Notes to Editors:
- The OPCW has issued three separate reports confirming the
presence of CS gas in samples collected by Ukraine from the
battlefield. There is an independently verified established
pattern of evidence which demonstrates breaches of the Chemical
Weapons Convention in Ukraine.
- This action builds on a previous package of chemical weapons
sanctions which included the previous head of Russia's CBR
forces, Igor Kirillov. More detail can be found here.
- Today we are sanctioning:
- The Joint Stock Company Federal Production Centre Scientific
Research Institute of Applied Chemistry for transferring gas
grenades to the Russian military, which have been used against
Ukraine as a method of warfare.
- Aleksey Rtishchev is the Chief, and Andrei Marchenko is a
Deputy Chief, of Russia's Radiological, Chemical and Biological
Defence troops, a unit which is responsible for the deployment of
Russia's chemical weapons and is already sanctioned by the
UK.
