Russia on Friday followed through on one of Western analysts’ gravest fears in recent days with its Ministry of Defense claiming that forces loyal to Kyiv are preparing a chemical attack in the embattled regions of Ukraine’s east.
The claims align with troubling conclusions late this week that Russia has finalized setting the conditions for staging a false flag chemical attack it will blame on Ukraine as a pretext for its own use of chemical weapons.
Russian Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, known as the “Butcher of Mariupol” for the brutally indiscriminate tactics against civilians he employed as commander of the ongoing siege of Mariupol, detailed the claims in a briefing on Friday but offered no proof to support the statements. He asserted that Ukrainian forces along with allied neo-Nazis were fortifying chemical facilities in the Donbas – the embattled region of eastern Ukraine on which Russian forces have recently focused – protecting them with human shields, provoking Russian encampments with shelling and were preparing to detonate chemical weapons if Russia responds.
He said the supposed preparations are “reliably established,” according to a translation of his remarks, and that they come at the direction of the governments of the United States and United Kingdom.
Mizintsev’s comments were delivered a day after a Washington, D.C.-based think tank assessed that Russia had ramped up setting conditions for launching a false flag attack between April 22 and May 4.
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