A Russian regional governor has claimed that Ukraine poisoned civilians using chemical weapons during its incursion.
The acting governor of the embattled Kursk Oblast has accused Ukraine of poisoning civilians with chemical weapons during the incursion into Russian territory.
During a Monday meeting with Vladimir Putin, Aleksey Smirnov told the president that a group of workers for the Rosseti power company „came under fire“ from Ukrainian forces over the weekend, Russian state-run news agency RT reported.
According to Smirnov, while the workers took cover in a local police station, they were targeted with shells „contain[ing] chemical weapons“, and alongside several police officers and the head of the village council, were „poisoned“ as a result.
Newsweek could not verify the claim made by Smirnov, and has contacted the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for comment on the governor’s allegations.
Accusations of the kind made by Smirnov are far from a new occurrence in the ongoing conflict, and form part of the concurrent propaganda war undertaken by both Moscow and Kyiv in a bid to tarnish the reputation of their opponent.
