DONETSK, October 20. /TASS/. The armed forces of Ukraine are using a poisonous gas near the DPR cities of Donetsk and Artyomovsk, Yan Gagin, a military analyst and an adviser to the DPR head, has told TASS.

"Kiev continues to use chemical weapons. Over the past few days, the adversary attacked our positions near Donetsk and Artyomovsk with chemical-laden projectiles. In those particular cases, symptoms of poisoning were more prominent, they were noticeably more serious and developed faster," the adviser said, adding that the majority of these projectiles were delivered by drones.

He explained that servicemen noticed specific odor shortly before experiencing shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness and eye pain.

"Evidently, they are using chloropicrin, which causes strong discomfort at particular temperatures, and may even become a serious health threat," Gagin added.

In late September, Gagin informed TASS that Kiev troops had used chemical agents to attack Russian positions near Gorlovka. The chief of the Tsar Wolves military research center told TASS in late May that Ukrainian troops had used chemical munitions in an attack on Russian positions in the Zaporozhye area.

Previously, Russian Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops Commander Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said that Russia is particularly concerned that, since 2001, the US has been blocking all international initiatives on BWC verification. The US and Ukraine omit the biological laboratories’ operation in their annual Convention implementation within the trust-building measures, despite these laboratories’ obvious military-biological nature. Kirillov noted that, since 2010, an incidence spike of brucellosis, Congo-Crimean fever, West Nile fever and African swine plague was registered on Russian territories bordering Ukraine.