“The whole version is crumbling”: Russia's permanent representative to the OPCW announced attempts by the West to conceal the truth about himatak in the Duma

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is in deep crisis. This view was expressed by the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation at the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin.

According to him, Moscow expects that the OPCW will return to normal operation.

“The OPCW is experiencing a deep crisis - the discord of its activities, the ultimate politicization. And it did not happen today, but much earlier. The practice of making consensus decisions has been completely forgotten, ”he said on Friday during a briefing“ Who actually uses chemical weapons in Syria? ”.

According to Shulgin, Western partners are doing everything to hide the truth about the situation in the Syrian Duma. He said that Russia offered to the OPCW technical department to hold a wide briefing with the participation of all experts on the incident in the Duma, but was refused.

The Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation at the OPCW said that in such a scenario it may turn out that there was no chemical attack.

“Then the whole version of Western countries and the USA collapses, then they are really violators of international law. Oh, how our American partners do not want to be in such a role. Therefore, they are doing everything to ensure that the truth does not surface, ”said Shulgin.

The briefing, which took place in the Netherlands on July 12, was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Russian experts and the Russian ambassador to the Netherlands.

Shulgin cited the circumstances of the publication of the report of the mission to establish the use of chemical weapons in Syria as an example of the situation in the OPCW. The document was published on March 1, 2019 and dealt with the investigation of the incident in the Syrian city of Duma in Eastern Ghouta on April 7, 2018.

According to him, in the published report, the conclusions "were formulated in such a way that no one had any doubts about the involvement of the Syrian authorities."

The document stated that a toxic substance, probably chlorine, was used in the alleged himatak on the Duma on April 7, 2018. It also followed from the document that two poison gas cylinders were dropped from the air. This made it possible to blame the Syrian government forces for what had happened, since the militants did not have aircraft.

Then the organization "White Helmets" accused the government forces of Syria in a chemical attack against civilians. A week later, under this pretext, the United States, Great Britain and France launched air and missile strikes on ATS.

In turn, several weeks before the incident in the Duma, representatives of Russia warned about the staging of an attack using chemical weapons by the militants.

Subsequently, information about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army was refuted by the local residents themselves, including in an interview with representatives of the Western media. At the end of April 2018, a group of residents of the Duma spoke to the members of the OPCW with a statement that the White Helmets movie on the use of chemical weapons, on the basis of which Western countries carried out air strikes on Syria, was staged.

Representatives of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the warring parties conducted a visit to the Duma on April 9 and also found no traces of the use of chemical weapons there. In addition, a document came into the hands of journalists with an examination drawn up by the OPCW engineer Ian Henderson, which states that gas cylinders were most likely delivered by hand.

The United States and its allies and the collective West as a whole literally turned the OPCW into an instrument of pressure on Russia, says Andrei Koshkin, head of the department of political science and sociology at the Russian University of Economics.

“The criticism of our representative is objective and reveals the mechanism for the transformation of the OPCW into a structure for lynching Russia before the whole world,” the expert emphasized.

According to Andrei Koshkin, published on March 1, 2019, the report of the OPCW experts on the alleged himata case in the Syrian Duma was specifically “ordered” as a response to the exposure of the White Helmets.

“After our media showed the guys who were filming these videos and saying that there were no himataks, the West and it took the OPCW’s opinion to technically confirm the information voiced in the commercials,” Koshkin said. “After all, it was on the basis of their words that Assad was accused of crimes against his own people, and US President Donald Trump even gave the order to bomb Syria.”

"The bodies were brought from outside"

At a briefing in the Netherlands, the Director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, Maxim Grigoriev, spoke about new surveys of Duma residents, from which it follows that there were no Himataks.

According to him, the findings are based on interviews with people who lived and live not just in the house, but also on the very staircase where the "attack" allegedly occurred.

“These people, including children and old people, were not affected in any way by the incident itself, which allegedly took place,” quotes a fragment of a speech by Grigoriev TASS. “But, as you understand, chlorine cannot selectively kill, bypass any apartments.”

According to him, evidence was received that none of the bodies found after the “attack” belong to the residents of this or other nearby houses.

“It is confirmed that these bodies were brought from outside, and these people somehow died or were killed before that,” he said. Grigoriev said that the witnesses told about the bringing of bodies by the militants.

• Briefing "Who actually uses chemical weapons in Syria?" In The Hague.

The expert suggested that the bodies were brought from the prison of the village of Al-Toba, and they were specially killed to fabricate an incident.

The West is interested in demonizing Russia and its allies, says Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“It is necessary to show that Russia is poisoning its political opponents to the left and to the right - the case of Skripale in the UK - undermines the electoral process. The ally of the Russian Federation, Syria, allegedly uses chemical weapons against civilians, ”said the expert in an interview with RT.

According to him, the United States is interested in maintaining the focus of tension in the Middle East, because they need a "point of entry" in the region.

“Such“ facts ”of himataks, which were allegedly carried out at the request of the authorities of the SAR, allow keeping Syria in the information space, justifying the tightening of sanctions. Sanctions can even be against Russia, they can be associated with the support of Assad, for example, ”said Blokhin.

Fake Production

"White helmets" put on stream the production of fakes about the "crimes" of government troops in Syria, said Andrei Koshkin. According to him, today no one cares that this or that video will be exposed.

“White helmets” create fakes and do not even try to justify themselves when they are refuted. During the time they are exposed, they can create dozens of new videos that literally flood the western man in the street. Thus, the investment of the United States of America and its allies in the “White Helmets” pays off many times, ”Koshkin states.

“White helmets” can still prove themselves and that’s why Western countries don’t stop supporting them, says Dmitry Egorenkov, director of the Institute of Strategic Research and Forecasts of RUDN.

“There has been an investment in human capital, it makes no sense to scatter them for the West,” says Dmitry Egorchenkov. “Their potential has not yet been fully utilized, not only in Syria, but also in other territories.”

According to the expert, “White helmets” cannot be publicly condemned by the Western authorities, despite the fact that there is a lot of evidence of this structure’s links with terrorists.

“Then we will have to admit that they were not aware of the White Helmets' connections with terrorists, and this is a blow to the reputation of the western intelligence community,” says Dmitry Egorenkov. “And if the Western intelligence services were in the know, it turns out that they were covering the terrorists, which is even worse.”

However, according to Yegorchenkov, it will not be possible to hide the truth about himataks in Syria.

"The more successfully the process of normalizing the situation in Syria develops, more opportunities will appear to go to the place and see everything with your own eyes, the more difficult it will be to hide."