PM: ‘Barbaric' Putin May Resort To Chemical Weapons

Boris Johnson has said he fears Vladimir Putin’s “cynical, barbaric” regime may resort to deploying chemical weapons in Ukraine.

- Ashley Cowburn David Harding

As western allies express concerns Russia could use the banned weapon, the prime minister stressed Moscow had a “fake story ready to go” – with claims of its opponents storing chemical weapons.

After the UK government accused the Kremlin of war crimes following the bombing of a maternity ward in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol, Mr Johnson said it showed the Russian president was prepared to reject “all norms of civilised behaviour”.

He also revealed Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, would soon travel to The Hague to see “what evidence” of war crimes Britain could help supply to the International Criminal Court, which recently launched an investigation into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to Sky News presenter Beth Rigby, Mr Johnson said: “The stuff which you are hearing about chemical weapons is straight out of the Russian playbook. They start saying that there are chemical weapons that are being stored by their opponents or by the Americans so that when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they may, they have a fake story ready to go.”

In a reference to the Salisbury nerve agent attack, the prime minister added: “You have seen it in Syria, you saw it even in the UK. I just note that is what they are already doing. It is a cynical, barbaric government, I’m afraid.”

Mr Johnson appeared to be referring to comments from the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. Earlier this week, she accused Ukraine, without evidence, of running chemical and biological weapons labs in its territory with the support of the US – a claim dismissed by the White House as “preposterous”.