Antony Blinken said the US has “credible information” about Russia's use of chemical weapons in Mariupol

The United States said Tuesday that it has “credible information” about the possibility that Russia has used “chemical agents” in its offensive to seize the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

“We share this information with Ukraine” and “we are in direct contact with our allies to determine what is currently happening, it is a very worrying issue,” the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, told the press, who said that he could not claim that Russian forces have used chemical weapons in Mariupol.

The US official emphasized that such attacks are difficult to prove, even when on the ground, and recalled that the US is not deployed in Ukraine.

“Understand that we want to be very careful here before we make a statement, we know that Russians have a history of using chemical agents and have shown a propensity in the past (to use them), so we take it very seriously,” he said.

Later, US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby added at a press conference that, according to the intelligence available to them, they do not rule out that Russia may attempt to mask a possible chemical attack with the use of riot control material, such as tear gas.

He stressed that, despite not being able to confirm the use of chemicals in Mariupol, “the Russians have certainly demonstrated that they are more than willing to use chemical weapons when it suits them in the past.”

Kirby said in a statement on Monday that they were “aware” of reports on social media about the potential use of chemical weapons in Mariupol.

The spokesman made these statements after the founder of the “Azov” regiment of Ukraine, Andrei Biletsky, accused Russian troops in a Telegram message of using a chemical substance in Mariupol and injuring three people.

In his message, Biletsky reported that Russia used a poisonous substance of unknown origin that was thrown from a drone on the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where three people were injured.

On Tuesday, the separatist militia in Donetsk denied using chemical weapons to storm the Azovstal plant in the besieged port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian defenders are equipped.

The spokesman for that militia, Eduard Basurin, told the Russian agency Interfax that “the forces of the Donetsk People's Republic did not use any chemical weapons in Mariupol”.

For his part, a military anesthetist who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the main symptoms of the victims are facial hyperemia, high blood pressure, dryness and inflammation in the oropharynx and mucous membranes of the eyes, according to CNN.

Maksym Zhorin, Azov's co-president, called the incident a “blatant crime”. “Many of us didn't think they did. But, probably out of the desperation of not being able to seize Mariupol for more than a month, they resorted to such cynical crimes and started using chemical weapons,” he said, according to CNN.

Speaking to national television, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said “there is an assumption that it could have been phosphorus ammunition.”

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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