The Guardian reports:

A military commander concluded that “toxic substances” or “potent toxic substances of suffocating action were used” – but acknowledged it was not possible to engage in a toxicological analysis because the Ukrainians were living in siege conditions.

It is too soon to say definitively what happened. One chemical weapons expert, Dan Kaszeta, the author of a history of nerve agents, cautioned that remote diagnosis was always difficult and questioned why, in the initial report, such a specific medical phrase as vestibulo-atactic syndrome had been used.

THREAD #Ukraine #Mariupol
Was there a chemical attack? What was it?

Well, let me say this about that (1/n)

— Dan Kaszeta 🇺🇦 (@DanKaszeta) April 12, 2022

It remained unclear whether chemicals, let alone chemical weapons, had been used on the evidence initially available, Kaszeta said, adding that on the site under attack there was “lots of scope … for conventional or incendiary weapons to cause chemical problems because of fires and explosions”. [Continue reading…]