MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/. Russia’s Defense Ministry has information that Kiev is plotting provocations to accuse Moscow of using chemical agents in the special military operation in Ukraine, Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Monday.
"The Russian Defense Ministry has information that Ukraine is plotting provocations to accuse the Russian Federation of using chemical agents in the special military operation. As the available data suggests, the fabricated proof will be transferred to OPCW representatives for compiling an allegedly independent report. The materials of the fabricated proof will be used at the 107th session of the OPCW Executive Council that will begin on October 8, 2024 and at the conference of the organization’s member states in November this year," the defense official said.
In the opinion of the OPCW Technical Secretariat, the Ukrainian side does not possess the potential and skills to select materials that meet the organization’s requirements, Kirillov said.
"For the purpose of assisting the Kiev regime, two groups of Ukrainian intelligence services numbering more than 40 people underwent training at the Center for Chemistry and Technology in The Hague in June 2024 in selecting samples for documenting facts of the use of chemical weapons. It became known that the Technical Secretariat supplied two batches of analytical control devices to Ukraine in July and September 2024. Overall, it transferred 13 First Defender and 70 LCD 3.3 analyzers meeting the OPCW’s requirements for documenting proof," the defense official said.
The Ukrainian side and the OPCW also signed an agreement on Privileges and Immunities in Technical Assistance Visits. The document will enable Ukraine to involve the OPCW in its own interests in circumvention of existing procedures under the Convention, thus imposing false conclusions on the organization on investigating chemical incidents, the Russian defense official said.
"In order to successfully carry through its plans, Kiev intends to take advantage of the absence of Russian representatives in the OPCW Executive Council and, if it succeeds, to seek further depriving representatives of the Russian Federation of posts in the Technical Secretariat," Kirillov stressed.