The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed on Nov. 18 that a riot control agent known as CS has been used in Ukraine, as evidence mounts that Russia has scaled up its attacks using chemical weapons in recent months.
The United Nations watchdog OPCW’s first confirmation about the tear gas usage comes as Russia has intensified its use of chemical agents since the beginning of the year to advance forward across Ukraine’s front line.
Russian drones throw gas grenades into dugouts or trenches in an attempt to force Ukrainian soldiers out into the open field, making them easy prey for drone or artillery attacks.
The U.S. and the U.K. have confirmed Russia’s deployment of chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers, slapping sanctions on Russia’s troops of Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense, their chief, Russian Defense Ministry scientific centers, and companies involved.
I’d just like to take a moment to observe that it’s a war crime to use CS in war, but perfectly acceptable to use on civilians. Maybe we should re-evaluate crowd control tactics.
As far as I understand it, this is due to fears of escalation rather than any acute effect of the gas itself. Someone gets hit with CS gas, they don’t know what it is right away, and they retaliate with lethal chemical weapons. Nonlethal chemical agents just increase the chance for confusion on the battlefield so they banned chemical agents altogether, including harassing agents like CS.
Along similar lines though, the rules of engagement for soldiers are way more stringent than the rules of engagement for police (do they even have any in the US?). I consider this much more egregious than tear gas regulations. Tear gas isn’t fun but it’s survivable. Bullets on the other hand, not so much.
While that may be true, I believe that citizens should be treated at least on par with service members. If tear gas is banned in war, it should be banned as a crowd suppressant
The regulation regarding harassing agents is not about treating service members a certain way, it’s about avoiding escalation to lethal chemical warfare. The risk of a civilian escalating to mustard gas or nerve gas after getting hit with CS is very low.
A better example for what you’re talking about would be hollow point bullets. 100% war crime to use because of its effects on the body, never saw one the whole time I was in the Army, yet it’s the type of bullet used by police nearly everywhere. It’s also what most home defense ammunition is.
Someone gets hit with CS gas, they don’t know what it is right away, and they retaliate with lethal chemical weapons.
Uhhh, this implies that infantry on the ground are equipped with like sarin dispensers just ready to go at all times.
Yeah, fair enough, it would be odd for immediate retaliation. However, let me present another scenario. Imagine harassing agents are permitted to be used in war. How long do you think it would take the war industry to develop significantly worse harassing agents than CS, and how much lawyering would end up happening to argue a certain chemical weapon is actually a harassing agent and not something that’s banned? Now that retaliation scenario isn’t that far out of the picture. Force A gets hit with some super harassing agent bordering (or actually) lethal chemical weapons, force B retaliates with mustard gas.
It’s easier to just ban them all.
You reminded me that one time we almost got killer/severely injured in a protest by a stun grenade.
This happened almost same time I saw some news of Israel killing protestors with tear gas grenades, as it fell into their head and skull, inducing lethal damage.
Anyway, I was with a friend and a bunch of people. Everything was peaceful and then, bam, out of nowhere it went to shit. We were used to it, but that time the tear gas was so bad that the neutralizer we brought was doing nothing. We were covered with a wall (bad idea, but we were panicking badly), and I wasn’t able to breath, so I wanted us to run away from there. I told him to let’s just run certain way, and I was so full of adrenaline and ready to run, but he stopped me. 1 second later, a stun grenade fell from the sky just 1 m away of us, in the direction I wanted us to run; no doubt it would have hit me in the head.
After that I just took his hand and we ran away, not able to see nor breath. Me holding his hand was a huge saver for both of us, as we could, more or less, guide each other. We ran some 20-30 m and just fell to the ground, but in a somewhat safe place. We crawled some 10 m more and just rest there. It took us some solid 15 minutes to catch our breath. Never said a word to my family.
Fun times.
Rozo, if you ever read this: queso.
War crimes are mutually agreed by close to parity powers. Crowd control isn’t. One group decides what is acceptable and what isn’t. I would be surprised if any government allow citizens the right to use CS gas on their police force.
They aren’t going to reevaluate crowd control tactics because the crowd don’t have the power to force a change.
No biggie. I’ve been on the receiving end of cs grenades more than a few times. In Canada.
Funny that chemical weapons are only a war crime when used in times of war, but my own government has and does use it at leisure.
As we learned this decade war crimes are just war suggestions anyway
If tear gas is so bad that it can’t be used in warfare, why the fuck are cops allowed to use it on civilians?
Because the Geneva convention doesn’t apply to cops.
It’s not “so bad”, it’s “bad enough to be mistaken for something more deadly, and to launch something more deadly in retaliation”.
Just put it over there with the rest of the war crimes.
Ah, CS gas… Ah the days of my youth…
KnOwN aS “CS”
I’m not sure if I’m just too ‘murica-brained, but it seems absolutely absurd to me to refer to pepper spray as some mythical scary thing. I actually prefer the use of pepper spray when controlling others with force because the alternative is bullets and those are soooo much worse.
CS gas is not the same as pepper spray.
