Russia using banned chemical agent on battlefield, alleges Ukraine

Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of stepping up frontline attacks using prohibited hazardous chemicals, including tear gas, the latest in a series of allegations of battlefield abuses.

Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of carrying out war crimes and deploying banned chemical munitions throughout the conflict in Ukraine, now in its third year.

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The Ukrainian military said Monday that it had registered 715 cases of the use of ammunition containing "hazardous chemical compounds" by Russian forces in May.

It said that figure represented an increase of 271 cases compared to one month earlier, and that Russian forces were mainly using grenades dropped by drones to deploy the substances.

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Medical facilities have received 1,385 visits from servicemen who had sustained "symptoms of chemical damage of varying severity," it added.

Ukraine said the chemicals deployed by Russian forces -- mainly CS gas -- was used primarily by law enforcement but that it was banned on the battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which Moscow has ratified.

The United States last month accused Russia of having used chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces, an allegation that Moscow denied.

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The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague said last month that the information it had received on alleged chemical weapons use in Ukraine was "insufficiently substantiated."

The OPCW however described the situation as "volatile" and "extremely concerning regarding the possible re-emergence of use of toxic chemicals as weapons."