Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Another international treaty Russia is ignoring — despite signing it itself.
The horrors of toxic battlefield combat are not a new scar on global history. Over a century ago, the battlefields of World War I became the testing ground for a terrifying form of warfare.
It began in the mud of Ypres in 1915, when German forces unleashed chlorine gas across the trenches. French troops fled in panic, choking on the invisible killer.
Soon, an intense arms race blanketed the trenches in heavy clouds of mustard gas and phosgene. The results were utterly catastrophic, blinding, blistering, and suffocating more than a million soldiers.
The global shock caused by these casualties was so profound that nations signed the 1925 Geneva Protocol to ban these brutal weapons forever.
Yet, the ghost of the Great War refuses to stay buried. Decades after the world swore to leave chemical weapons in the past, a grim and familiar pattern is re-emerging on modern front lines.
A toxic trend
According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Russian army is now using banned chemical warfare agents as a regular tactic.
A Ukrainian military official recently traveled to Chisinau, Moldova, to warn international partners about a highly dangerous shift in battlefield tactics in Ukraine.
The findings were presented during a meeting of the Group on Information Exchange on Technical Assistance to Ukraine by Ukrainian Colonel Valerii Veber, Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Mine Action, Civil Protection and Environmental Safety.
He revealed that official records now track more than 13,300 individual cases involving enemy chemical munitions since the full-scale invasion began.
Rapidly rising attacks
The Ukrainian delegation presented detailed data to its allies showing exactly how these illegal strikes have evolved.
While the deployment of chemical agents was mostly sporadic during 2023, the situation on the ground changed dramatically the following year.
This aggressive strategy has not slowed at all, forcing front-line troops to adapt to toxic conditions on a weekly basis.
As of the first half of 2026, the use of these forbidden munitions remains consistently high. Ukrainian forces continue to encounter these hazardous weapons along the entire line of contact as the fighting rages on.
International ban
The Geneva Protocol banned the use of poisonous, asphyxiating, or other gases, as well as biological agents in warfare. However, the production and storage of such weapons were not prohibited.
That changed in 1993 when the Chemical Weapons Convention was signed. It entered into force in 1997 and required member states to destroy production facilities as well as remaining stockpiles.
Russia has signed both the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Sources: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
