Russian Black Sea Fleet Brigade Apparently Using Chemical Weapons

A Russian Black Sea fleet marine brigade deployed in southern Ukraine is using chemical weapons dropped by drones against Ukrainian fighters, Moscow’s military appears to have confirmed.

Russia’s 810th Naval Infantry Brigade has used a “radical change” in tactics around the contested village of Krynky, on the east bank of the Dnieper River in the southern Kherson region, since mid-December, Moscow’s military said.

Kyiv’s forces have been whittling away at Russian defenses on the east bank of the Dnieper, establishing pockets of control with ground operations in villages such as Krynky since mid-October.

“The tactic of dropping K-51 grenades from drones onto enemy positions was successfully tested and applied in order to smoke them out from fortified positions,” the brigade said in a post to Telegram on Friday.

The 810th also published footage appearing to show a K-51 bomb in use in Ukraine, the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), noted on Saturday.

If confirmed, this would be a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty that has been in place for more than a quarter of a century aimed at destroying chemical weapon stockpiles and chemical weapon production facilities, as well as banning their use. Russia is a party to the convention.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

K-51 aerosol grenades contain CS-gas, a type of tear gas commonly used to control rioting crowds, the ISW said in its latest analysis. The think tank has previously claimed that Russia used K-51 grenades against Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region in November 2022.

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of using chemical weapons throughout the 22-month-old war.

Kyiv’s navy said in December 2022 that Russian soldiers had dropped K-51 bombs containing chloropicrin from drones in eastern Ukraine. Russian soldiers in southern Ukraine have been using a form of CS gas against Kyiv’s troops, a Ukrainian official told CNN in a report published on Tuesday.

Chloropicrin vapors are irritating to the skin, eyes, and upper respiratory tract and have been used in chemical warfare in the past.

Ukraine’s military also said back in May that Russia dropped chemical weapons from drones around the Donetsk town of Avdiivka, prior to some of the most bitter fighting of the war around the town from early October.

An adviser to the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic said earlier this year that Ukraine used chemical weapons around the ruined eastern village of Soledar and the destroyed city of Bakhmut, without providing evidence. Ukraine denied the claim.

“The enemy’s accusations of the use of chemical weapons by units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are untrue,” military officials told Reuters in February.

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a long-time ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in early November that “the risk that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will be used is increasing.”

Ukraine made sweeping gains in Kherson in its first counteroffensive in late 2022, pushing Russian forces back to the east bank of the Dnieper River, which has roughly marked the front lines in the region throughout 2023.

Soldiers from the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade arrived in Krynky in early October, and likely took over from Russia’s 18th Combined Arms Army in the area, the ISW has previously said.