Chemical Weapons and the Ukraine

Recent reports about the possible use of chemical weapons in an attack on Mariupol (see here for example). The specter of chemical warfare always raises humanitarian concerns, but a close reading of these reports raises the potential of another concern, unintentional chemical warfare.

Background

Back in 1988 I wrote an article for the US Army Chemical Review on “Modern Chemical Warfare – Complicated by a Long List of Toxic Chemicals”. In that article I wrote about the problems associated with warfare in and around chemical facilities. Attacks on such facilities could easily result in the release of toxic chemicals that could have unintended consequences on the battlefield. The worst result, beyond the possibility of needless deaths and injuries in a combat zone, would be one side or the other mistaking an industrial chemical release for an attack with chemical weapons.

For example, by long-standing US policy dating back to Ronald Reagan, if American forces are attacked with chemical weapons, the US could consider that an attack with weapons of mass destruction and reply in kind. The only problem with that is that the only weapons of mass destruction in our arsenal are nuclear weapons. Thus, we could see a situation arise where an attack on an industrial facility defended by US forces could result in the release of toxic chemicals and the commander on the scene could assume and report that the resulting casualties were the result of a chemical weapons attack. In the fog of war, such a report could potentially result in the release of tactical nuclear weapons.

Or, say a world leader says that “if chemical weapons are used in this conflict, we will intervene…”, then an industrial chemical release could lead to a wider conflict.

The Reported Attack

The ‘attack’ that reportedly took place was described in the BBC article like this:

“One injured man described a "sweet-tasting" white smoke covering an area of the plant after an explosion. Another said he felt immediately unable to breathe and had collapsed with ‘cotton legs’.”

Obviously, both men survived the ‘chemical attack’. Now the Russian military has had a large number of problems during this attack on Ukraine, but I would be very surprised to hear that their chemical weapons did not work. They have a long history back through the Soviet days of developing and producing chemical weapons. So, if there were a Russian chemical attack on Ukrainian forces, I would expect to hear about a large number of casualties.

The attack took place at the Azovstal metals plant outside of the city. I’m not sure what kind of metals processing takes place there, but many such plants use strong acids like nitric acid and sulfuric acid for metal cleaning. White steam clouds are released when these acids react with water or even moist air. A wide variety of industrial chemicals interfere with breathing. One of the most common is cryogenic Nitrogen. Nitrogen is not toxic, but if the concentration is too high, there would not be enough oxygen present. People would pass out but would not die if the cloud blew through the area and an adequate oxygen supply became available quickly enough.

Other industries would have different chemical hazards. An interesting look at some of the chemicals associated with different industries can be found on the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) website. This page provides a series of Industry Fact Sheets discussing what DHS chemicals of interest (COI) are used by various non-chemical industry groups. They are certainly not comprehensive lists of chemicals used, but they do show how wide spread chemical use is in modern manufacturing environments.

Conclusion

To my mind, with my background in both the military and chemical manufacturing, this attack does not sound like a deliberate chemical attack. It sounds like the inevitable result of an attack on an industrial facility that uses hazardous chemicals on a routine basis. Tossing artillery rounds indiscriminately at such a facility is asking for a chemical release that might be mistaken for the use of a chemical weapon.

Anyone defending such a facility had better be prepared to conduct defensive operations in a chemical environment, with all of the difficulties that that entails.