UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has expressed his concerns that Russia might deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Speaking with Sky News, Johnson said that using chemical weapons is part of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine would be ‘right out of Russia’s playbook’.
The PM also said that the only way that the war between Ukraine and Russia will end is if Putin admits that he’s made a ‘catastrophic mistake’.
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Johnson is far from alone in his concerns about potential use of chemical weapons, and expanded on those concerns whilst addressing statements from Russia suggesting that Ukraine had been planning to use such weapons against them in the war.
He told Beth Rigby: "The stuff that you're hearing about chemical weapons is straight out of their playbook.
"They start saying that there are chemical weapons that have been stored by their opponents or by the Americans.
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"And so, when they themselves deploy chemical weapons, as I fear they may, they have a sort of maskirovka - a fake story - ready to go.
"You've seen it in Syria. You saw it even in the UK.
“That's what they're already doing.
“It is a cynical, barbaric government."
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The argument began yesterday (9 March), when Moscow said that it had discovered a military biological weapons programme somewhere in Ukraine that involved deadly chemical weapons such as anthrax and plague.
They implored the USA to give an explanation on the ‘Ukrainian biological weapons lab’, though a US official has since described the claims as ‘absurd propaganda’ and accused Moscow of retroactively creating arguments in support of their invasion of Ukraine.
On the subject of a compromise, Johnson added that it all ‘depends on Putin’.
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He added: “It’s up to him and to him alone.”
Johnson continued: "I think he needs to understand that he's made a disastrous miscalculation and that everybody can see that things aren't progressing in the way that he hoped.
"His best bet, I think, is to withdraw, to cease the violence and to allow a peaceful negotiation to begin."
He reiterated that it is ‘up to the Kremlin’ to stop the conflict, adding that Putin must accept that he has made ‘a catastrophic mistake… now or a bit later on’.
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The Russian President, he added, ‘needs to understand that his options are not good’ and that he has ‘made it very difficult to find an offer’.
The full interview will air on Sky News at 9.00pm this evening.
Featured Image Credit: Sky News/AlamyTopics: Ukraine, Russia, World News, Boris Johnson, UK News, Vladimir Putin, Politics