Eduard Basurin can often be seen on Russian television these days. As one of the leaders and spokesman of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, he regularly presents the military situation in Donbass from a Russian perspective. When he spoke about the situation in Mariupol on Monday, he said a sentence that made people sit up and take notice. Basurin explained why it was pointless to storm the positions of the Ukrainian defenders in the “Azovstal” steelworks: in view of the massive buildings and the many underground shells, one would lose many soldiers while the enemy hardly suffered any casualties. Therefore, you have to block the plant and find the entrances and exits. “And then I think you have to go to the chemical forces and they’ll find a way to smoke out the moles in their burrows.”
In doing so, Basurin announced what has been feared in Ukraine and in the West for weeks: that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine. As if their existence were completely self-evident, he speaks of “chemical forces”. The Russian leadership claims that it completed the destruction of all Soviet-era chemical weapons in 2017, thereby fulfilling its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The destruction of the stocks was also confirmed four and a half years ago by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Admittedly, there have always been doubts as to whether this corresponds to reality: They were fueled by the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the nerve agent attacks on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in Great Britain in 2018 and on opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020.
shortness of breath and balance disorders
A few hours after Basurin’s announcement, the Ukrainian Azov regiment reported from Mariupol on Monday evening that the Russians had released a poison from a drone. It causes shortness of breath and balance disorders in those affected. If true, it wasn’t a large-scale attack. A little later, Azov commander Andriy Biletsky spoke of three injured people in a short video published on Telegram. In Kyiv, Washington and London, however, the reports are taken very seriously. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss released a brief statement on Twitter that night saying they were working with partners to verify the details. The Pentagon spokesman said they have no evidence yet and are following the information very closely.
Reports from both sides suggest that a decision is imminent in Mariupol after the more than month-long blockade. Russia announced on Monday that it had taken full control of the city’s port. This was not confirmed by the Ukrainian side. However, Ukrainian ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova said Russian troops had kidnapped the crew of a civilian cargo ship that had been stranded in the city’s port since February 21.
In a dramatic appeal Monday, the 36th Marines Brigade reached out to Ukrainians via Facebook. In it, they made accusations against the military leadership: no one is contacting them anymore, “because we’ve been written off.” In the days of the blockade, they would only have received ammunition once. Opportunities to break through the blockade of the city were not used.
“Today is perhaps the last fight,” the text says, since there were no more weapons left. “Furthermore the fistfight remains”. The supreme commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces later published a statement on Facebook, saying that they are in contact with the Mariupol defenders and are doing “what is possible and impossible” to save lives.
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