A soldier of the National Guard of Ukraine takes off his gas mask and breathes fresh air.

Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is now in its third year, with a stalemate along the 1000 kilometres of the contact line. Unable to break the spirit and fortitude of Kyiv’s forces with conventional weapons, the Kremlin is now resorting to WW1-style gas attacks.

With the statesmen of the West busy trying to avoid the escalation Putin and his gangsters threaten on an almost daily basis, Russia has hoodwinked our leaders into ignoring the chemical threat. It is clear to me that over the last 12 months, Russian forces have been using chemical weapons on an industrial scale, and with great effect: they are making tangible gains across the front.

There has been no retribution from the US, the UK or other Nato countries who know full well that Putin is, in effect, conducting war crimes with impunity.  For sure, the CS gas being deployed sits at the very left end of the scale of the deadliness of chemical weapons, and they are legal to use in some circumstances – mostly breaking up civil protest and disobedience. But it is this ambiguity, and the West’s obvious desire not to get decisively engaged in this complex war, which Putin is exploiting as a conductor would an orchestra.

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I know first hand how deadly these weapons can be. As well as having commanded the British Army’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, I have seen Assad use improvised chemical weapons in Syria and have been on the receiving end of ISIS firing chlorine mortars near Mosul in 2016. I can assure you that they are devastatingly effective if you don’t have protection.

These are morbidly brilliant weapons and if you have no morals and nobody to stop you, you will use them all the time. Putin and his gangsters have neither, and he is using them to great effect and without fear of retribution.  The psychological effect of chemical weapons is ten as to one their physical. This is why tyrants like Assad and Putin, who rely on terror to subjugate their own people, as well as their enemies, are so trigger happy with them.

If Ukraine is to remain free, we must give it the means to do so. This means the training and equipment needed to survive these attacks. I’ve done it in Syria and Iraq, and it will work in Ukraine as well. When Syrian civilians were dying in their hundreds from Assad’s chemical attacks, and when the Iraqi soldiers I was advising came under attack from ISS chemical weapons, we gave them gear and training, and watched as the casualties fell markedly.

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It is very clear what our government should now do. The weapons Putin is using are potent only for minutes. You don’t need fancy suits or boots and gloves to protect against them, just a decent gas mask. It was the Germans in WW1 who first realised how chemical weapons could be used to break through a trench stalemate at Ypres in April 1915. It was British gas masks then which nullified this weapon. Today, we are still the foremost manufacturer of gas masks worldwide. It’s time we stepped up to the plate.

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