Ukraine crisis: Russia says US spreading lies on possible chemical attack

Russia said on Wednesday that claims by the United States and Ukraine that it could use chemical weapons in the ongoing war were disinformation because Moscow destroyed its last chemical stockpiles in 2017.

Ukraine's defence ministry said on Tuesday that it was checking claims that Russia may have used chemical weapons in the southern port city of Mariupol.

US Department of State Spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday that the United States was concerned Russia may seek to resort to chemical weapons in Ukraine.

Russia's embassy in Washington said Ukrainian radicals were preparing to stage provocations with the use of chemical weapons and that the State Department's Price was spreading disinformation.

"We call on Washington to stop spreading disinformation," the embassy said in a statement. "Ned Price once again distinguished himself by his idle talk, not substantiated by a single piece of evidence."

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour's military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.

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Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.

Russia says the West is gripped by discriminatory anti-Russian paranoia and says Western media have provided an excessively partial narrative of the war in Ukraine that largely ignores Moscow’s concerns about the enlargement of Nato and the persecution of its speakers.

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