11th March, 2022
United States President, Joe Biden has sent stern warning to Russia over purported plan to use chemical weapons in the war against Ukraine.
There have been fears that Putin may deploy chemical weapons to prosecute the war in Ukraine.
Biden, on Friday warned that Russia would pay a “severe price” if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“I’m not going to speak about the intelligence, but Russia will pay a severe price if they use chemicals,” Biden told CNN’s Arlette Saenz following remarks announcing further sanctions and export controls against Russia.
The US government has previously found that the Russian government used chemical weapons in both the 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and in 2018 against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England.
Meanwhile, a senior US defence official has said the Russian forces have launched more than 800 missiles of “all stripes, wide varieties, and sizes” since the beginning of their invasion of Ukraine.
The official said about half of the missile launches have come from locations inside Ukraine, and about half have come from Russia and Belarus combined.