Times: Prolonged war could push Putin to use chemical weapons of mass destruction

Ukraine's Western allies believe a protracted war could push the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to use weapons of mass destruction against Ukraine. This was reported by the newspaper The Times with reference to unnamed interlocutors familiar with the matter.

According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians have used hazardous chemicals more than 9,000 times since the start of the full-scale war. Most of them – 6,540 times last year alone. Most of this involved grenades filled with riot control gases such as CS and CN. These substances are not lethal, but can seriously harm health.

Ukrainian and European officials say that Russian units have also occasionally used chloropicrin, a choking agent first used during World War I.

The use of such gases violates the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1925 Geneva Protocol. This is stated in the explanations to the sanctions imposed by the European Union. The use was also confirmed by the findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The organization found toxic substances in samples taken from the affected areas on the front line.

Western officials are concerned that the chemicals reported by Ukraine may not reflect the full extent of Russia's arsenal. Moscow claimed in 2017 that it had destroyed its stockpile in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, but Western intelligence agencies believe that Russia has not destroyed all of its stockpile.

Suspicions that Russia continues to research and produce chemical weapons were reinforced by the use of the Novichok nerve agent against Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer, in Salisbury in 2018.

Allied capitals are quietly expressing concern that a protracted or stalemate war could push the Kremlin to use more dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Putin has repeatedly rattled off nuclear weapons while defiantly remaining silent on chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction.

Suspicions about Russia's chemical capabilities have increased since the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in 2020. Russia's most prominent opposition politician survived exposure to a nerve agent before being imprisoned on politically motivated charges.

Navalny died in a remote penal colony in February 2024. Russian authorities claimed that he collapsed after feeling unwell. This claim was rejected by his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who accused the Kremlin of poisoning him with a new, harder-to-detect nerve agent.

Following Navalny's poisoning in 2020, the Bellingcat research team concluded that Russia's Novichok program had lasted "well beyond the officially announced closure date."

According to the investigation, the scientists involved in the development of the nerve agent were transferred to allegedly civilian institutes, allowing them to continue working on chemical weapons under the guise of medical and industrial research.

"It's fair to assume that Russia's chemical weapons program still exists," said Hamish de Breton-Gordon, a former British army officer and commander of NATO's Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Rapid Reaction Battalion. According to him, this is a serious concern.

In his opinion, if Novichok were applied on a wider scale, it could have enormous consequences.

Russia has been accused of regularly using gas to force Ukrainian soldiers out of trenches and dugouts, forcing them into open space where they are more easily targeted. The UK has provided large numbers of gas masks to protect troops from such attacks.

• In November 2025, it was reported that Ukraine has been chosen to the Executive Board of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
• In January 2026, Russian propaganda launched a wave of disinformation about the alleged ukraine's preparation of a provocation with chemical weapons.