The United States suggests that Russia is preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine

Biden administration officials are concerned that Russian President Putin may first use chemical weapons in Ukraine before resorting to a nuclear confrontation with NATO if his troops continue to lose ground, reports Politico.

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The concern, according to six people with knowledge of the matter, arose as the administration sought to ensure that allies were prepared for this turn of events, as well as to mobilize new resources and investment in the production of chemical detection systems. Among the people who spoke on the issue on condition of anonymity were US officials and representatives of the Department of Defense.

The US has no evidence to suggest that such an attack on Ukraine is imminent, the sources said. In fact, many Department officials believe that during the winter months, the fighting will stall, and neither side will be able to capture much territory.

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But in the event of continued combat casualties or the complete collapse of the Russian army, some senior officials on the issue believe that Moscow could resort to the use of chemical weapons, including the one with which it poisoned Alexei Navalny.

Such an attack would involve easily-hidden chemicals, one official said, making it difficult for Western countries to blame Moscow. Russia may use pharmaceutical-based agents known colloquially as PBAs, the official said. Some chemicals could be used in a mass casualty attack, officials and experts say, although Moscow is known to have used the Novichok nerve agent on only one or two people at a time. For example, some chemicals can be aerosolized or used in munitions to harm a large group of people.

The US has long known that Russia is investing in building up its chemical weapons capability. According to the congressman's aide, senators have been briefed this fall on Russia's stockpiles of chemical weapons and the threat to Ukraine. But concerns about its possible use in Ukraine are rising as US officials increasingly believe Russia will resort to unconventional warfare if it continues to lose ground.

This assessment pushes the Biden administration to improve detection and preparation for a potential chemical attack. This fall, the Pentagon sent teams to countries in Eastern Europe to update their military with regard to procedures in the event of a chemical or biological threat. Meanwhile, the United States has provided Kyiv with chemical, biological and nuclear defenses as part of billions of dollars of security assistance.

Senior officials are also pushing for a review of the US approach to both preparing for and responding to potential chemical weapons attacks by various actors, including Russia.

The Biden administration is developing plans to increase investment in manufacturing capacity for early warning systems and protection technologies such as masks. She also wants to rethink how we gather better data and intelligence about countries' capabilities and endowments.

The US stepped up efforts to trace Russia's use of the Novichok nerve agent after the international community linked it to the poisoning of Navalny, an outspoken opponent of Putin, and Sergei Skripal, a British citizen who worked as a Russian intelligence officer.

In 2018, Skripal and his daughter required medical attention after coming into contact with Novichok. And in 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in Germany, where officials said there was "unambiguous evidence" that he was poisoned by Novichok during the flight. The men survived.

Russia has also been linked to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The US has accused Moscow of helping the Syrian government cover up the use of banned toxic munitions during the civil war.

Tracking down pharmaceutical-based agents and gathering information about their development, especially for offensive purposes, has become increasingly difficult, experts and officials have said. Substances used to develop chemical weapons are easy to cover and can be introduced into legitimate industries, said Gregory Koblenz, director of the biodefense program at George Mason University.

“Our traditional intelligence techniques that we're really good at, like satellite imagery and signals intelligence, aren't really that useful for telling you what's going on inside one of these major biological entities,” Koblenz said. “It really requires human intelligence, it’s very difficult to get that kind of data.”

There were signs that Russia might resort to unconventional methods of warfare. US intelligence this fall showed that senior officials believed that Russia might use nuclear weapons in a desperate situation. And in October, Russian officials said Ukraine was preparing a false flag operation. Allegedly, she wants to detonate a "dirty bomb" on her territory.

Western leaders denied the accusations, warning that Moscow could use false accusations as a pretext to escalate the conflict. US officials at the time expressed concern that Russia could use a dirty bomb, homemade weapons made from radioactive nuclear waste and conventional explosives, and then blame Ukraine for it.

During the crisis, U.S. officials made numerous phone calls to their Ukrainian and Russian counterparts, and concerns about the potential dirty bomb threat "decreased a bit," a senior Defense Department official said.

Officials do not believe in the possibility of a nuclear or chemical attack. Defense Department officials believe that the fighting will slow down in the winter months, when rain and mud make it difficult for tanks and armor to move, and neither side will make much progress on the battlefield. Despite Kyiv's hard-won victory in recapturing the strategic southern city of Kherson, they foresee heavy fighting to reclaim territory on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, where Russian forces have concentrated.

“They don't have the military muscle to win in the short term, short of a major Russian collapse,” said one Defense Department official. “This may happen, but then we will go up the ladder of escalation.”

Still, officials say the administration takes the threat of chemical weapons seriously.

“We have always known that Russia has the means and capabilities to use these types of weapons,” one Pentagon official said. — Our assessment remains the same. We are watching this conflict closely, but we see nothing that would cause us to change our position.”

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The United States imposed sanctions against Russia for using Novichok. They also sanctioned Russian groups involved in building up Moscow's bioweapons capabilities.

In recent months, without providing evidence, Russian officials have publicly claimed that the US has a secret biological weapons program. This year, Russia convened hearings for the first time in nearly 25 years on its allegations under the Biological Weapons Convention, an international treaty signed in 1975 to prevent countries from developing and using biological weapons.

Officials and experts say this is Russia's attempt to promote disinformation as a way to discredit the US as it continues to ramp up support for Ukraine on the battlefield.

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