“Washington maintains significant interest in the use of riot control agents as a weapon of war. In 2007, the United States adopted a general military regulation on the use of non-lethal weapons, and in 2015, the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff approved the “Guidelines for the Implementation of the Provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention,” he said.
According to Kirillov, the documents define the procedure for the use of non-lethal chemical weapons by military units during special, humanitarian, counter-terrorism operations and peacekeeping missions.
“If previously the Americans talked about using such weapons only in response to the enemy’s chemical aggression, an important aspect of the new rules is the possibility of using toxic chemicals unilaterally,” the representative of the Russian defense department emphasized.
He noted that in 2021, after tests in Afghanistan, deliveries of VKS air rifles with chemical ammunition filled with capsaicin began to the US ground forces. Ammunition is fired at a distance of up to 50 m.
“To defeat the enemy at long range, it is planned to use 120 mm mines, 155 mm artillery and 120 mm tank rounds. It’s hard to imagine that such ammunition is needed to disperse demonstrations or other peaceful purposes,” the specialist added.
Earlier, Kirillov spoke about the “unknown fate” of a number of US chemical munitions.