Russia distributing fake video about Ukraine's production of chemical weapons

The Telegram channel of the Russian Defense Ministry, the leading Kremlin-run media and their accounts on social media are distributing a video in which CBRN defense specialists from the Russian Armed Forces are allegedly inspecting a chemical laboratory in the Avdiivka area. The Russians claim that the Ukrainians allegedly produced chemical weapons in this laboratory.

In addition to this video, Russian media outlets are distributing slides that were shown at a briefing of the Russian Defense Ministry to an international audience. The slides include screenshots from the same video with a description of the equipment, as well as samples of alleged "chemical weapons" that, according to the propagandists, the Ukrainians used against the Russian army.

The video is fake as it is not possible to identify the real location of this chemical laboratory and to understand whether it is located in Avdiivka. In addition to remarks by the Russian military, there is no evidence that there are elements of the production of chemical weapons in this room.

Avdiivka hosts the largest coke and chemical plant in Europe, and there may be chemical laboratories at such an enterprise and in its surroundings. Vitalii Barabash, head of the Avdiivka civil-military administration, told Ukrinform that it is impossible to produce chemical weapons in the laboratory, the video of which was shown by Russian propagandists, because the presented equipment is insufficient.

"It is logical. There is more than one laboratory in Avdiivka, where the coke and chemical enterprise is located. Looking at the photos and videos, it is ridiculous to talk about the equipment used to produce chemical weapons. This is old equipment, mostly from Soviet times," Barabash said.

Any Russian can set up such a laboratory for the creation of "chemical weapons" at home. On average, it can cost 400,000 roubles or 168,000 hryvnias or 4,500 U.S. dollars.

Therefore, to pass ordinary chemical equipment, which can be freely bought in Russia, as a laboratory for the production of chemical weapons is nothing more than manipulation and fiction.

Another proof that chemical weapons were not manufactured in Avdiivka is a slide from the same press briefing of the Russian occupiers, which is also spread by the Russian media.

Representatives of the Russian armed forces accuse Ukraine of terrorist attacks using chemical substances, which they themselves carried out in the spring of 2022. The consequences of Russian shelling in Rubizhne and Sievierodonetsk in the Luhansk region, as well as in Dovhenke, Kharkiv region, can be seen on the slide provided by the Russians.

Experts from the International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have not found any evidence of the use of chemical weapons by the Ukrainian army against Russian invaders.

However, the Russians actively use chemical weapons against the Ukrainian Armed Forces. An investigation conducted by the British newspaper The Telegraph states that Russian forces are systematically conducting a campaign of illegal chemical attacks against the Ukrainian military.

In total, as of January 2024, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces recorded at least 626 chemical attacks against Ukrainian defenders.

Earlier, Russian propaganda spread a fake to Western audiences that the Ukrainian military carried out torture in Bucha.

Andriy Olenin