Speculations & inferences on forced evacuations and Russian chemical weapon usage in Ukraine
Scenarios & priorities from the other side of the hill
From March 29th to April 1st, two new developments in the Ukraine war reached sufficient points of multiple-confirmation and certainty that they can be called new strategic givens which must be attended to by citizen-decisionmakers; they are now, properly, political questions. These are multiple confirmed accounts of mass forced evacuations of Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops, including in Mariupol; and multiple-sourced warnings of increased risk of chemical/biological weapons deployment in Ukraine by Russia.
Let us examine each in turn before speculating as to causes and connections.
Forced evacuation and abductions by Russian forces in Ukraine
The practice of abductions and forced evacuations appears to occur in urban areas bypassed by Russian frontlines, and may represent a ‘pacification’ strategy by Russia, in order to seize and control key human terrain. Removal of civilians from targeted urban areas also diminishes the risk of collateral damage, and concomitant political unsustainability of the overall war. Within the context of the referendum announced in separatist territories on March 27th, the mass evacuation of (presumably) Ukraine-friendly civilians may also represent an election interference effort - the referendum is more likely to pass if there are no civilians there to vote against it.
Russian militia groups like the Night Wolves and internal-regime-security troops like FSB Alpha Group have been observed conducting activity which may be part of this overall pattern.
Multiple evacuation notices appear in separatist social media sources during February and March, but it is difficult to tie these to the current mass-evacuation practice from open public reporting. Notably, many of these evacuation notices are made by social media Pages representing entities subject to United States sanctions designations governing any such entities purporting to represent the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
As such, the provision of these social media accounts - in some cases for better than seven years since their designation - constitutes willful and flagrant violation of United States law governing provision of services to sanctioned entities, according to multiple sources quoted in the Washington Post on March 10, 2022.
Confirmed abductions and notable events:
March 10 - Melitopol mayor Mayor Ivan Fedorov abducted, freed March 16th (ABC News)
March 10 - Dniprorudne mayor Yevhen Matveyev abducted (Washington Post)
March 11 - Ukraine foreign minister accuses Russia of abducting mayors and regional leaders (CNN)
March 17 - Velykoburlutska Mayor Viktor Tereshchenko abducted (The Hill)
March 24 - Council of Europe President Leender Veerbeek publicly accuses Russia of abducting mayors (CoE)
Forced evacuations and notable events:
March 6 - So-called City of Gorlovka (separatist entity) announces evacuation instructions (Facebook)
March 6 - ROSGVARDIIA units led by Chechen head-of-state Ramzan Kadyrov reported in-country (Forbes)
March 7 - Russia proposes a series of humanitarian evacuation corridors that lead to Russia and Belarus (The Guardian, NBC News, Reuters) which are rejected
March 15 - Mariupol forced evacuations begin, according to firsthand pseudonymous account from “Natalia Yavorska” (OpenDemocracy)
March 17 - FSB Alpha Group operators allegedly sighted operating behind the lines in Kherson (Military Informant Telegram via author)
March 24 - Ukraine ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova accuses Russia of forced evacuations (DailyMail)
March 24 - So-called City of Makeyevka announces “evacuation” of Mariupol (Facebook)
March 26 - “Night Wolves Motorcycle Club” militia sighted in potentially staged video of evacuations in Rubizhne (east Ukraine) (Telegram via author)
March 27 - Separatist leader Denis Pushilin calls for referendum on status of so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (RFE/RL)
March 27 - Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk says 40,000 Ukrainian residents forcibly evacuated; mass-evacuated Mariupol residents reported in, and geolocated to, camps in Bezimenne, Russia, according to multiple sources (Washington Post, BBC); these camps are characterized as “filtration” camps and alleged to be run by the FSB by the “Natalia Yakorska” firsthand account
March 29 - Multiple sources in France24 accuse Russia of forced evacuations (France24)
March 30 - Photographs from Kadyrov’s Instagram geolocated to Mariupol (France24)
March 30 - U.N. human rights chief Bachelet announces inquiry into mass evacuations and abductions (OHCHR, MarketWatch)
March 31 - ROSGVARDIIA members who refused to advance into Ukraine on 2/24 come forward alleging illegal deployment to Ukraine (Financial Times)
Increased risk of chemical and biological weapons deployment in Ukraine
As of April 2nd, 2022, multiple major-outlet sources are reporting on American planning taking place around potential responses to chemical or biological weapons deployment in Ukraine (Politico, Reuters, Arms Control Association).
A White House “tiger team” has been convened around Ukraine policy, and it is specifically grappling with these contingencies (BusinessInsider, The New York Times).
The March 21st shelling of the Sumykhimprom chemical plant in Sumy, Ukraine by Russia suggests one scenario for chemical weapons release: a military attack that causes an industrial accident, causing contamination without using chemical weapons, and establishing a Russian pretext for chemical/biological escalation (New Scientist).
The Institute for the Study of War’s assessment for April 2, 2022, examines Russian disinformation as clues towards its war plans, and notes further that:
Russian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Igor Konashenkov claimed on March 30 that Ukrainian forces “considered the possibility of using biological weapons against the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR)” with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces Head Igor Kirillov claimed on March 31 that Ukraine asked Bayraktar (the Turkish manufacturer of many of Ukraine’s UAVs) to equip Ukraine’s drones with an aerosol spraying mechanism for biological weapons in December 2021.
Russian State Duma officials convened a committee on March 31 to “investigate” Russia’s repeated and false allegations that US biolabs are participating in “the development of biological weapons components in the immediate vicinity of the territory of Russia.”
Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky told Russian state media on April 1 that Ukrainian forces “plan to blow up railway containers containing up to 800 tons of chlorine” in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and claimed that Russia is providing additional evidence of alleged Ukrainian biological weapons programs to the United Nations.
Without verging too far into speculative territory, it is possible to obtain potentially non-trivial readings as to possible scenarios for Russian deployment of chemical or biological weapons.
Multiple journalistic assessments point at Syria as possible precedent (The Guardian, MotherJones citing Andrew Weber, Financial Times).
Polyansky’s specific mention of chlorine on April 1st, within the Kharkiv salient, suggests this is a specific scenario worth attending to (TASS)
As a rule, chemical and biological weapons are relatively hard to use. As noted in Army Field Manual 3-6, “High wind speeds cause rapid dispersion of vapors or aerosols, thereby decreasing effective coverage of the target area and time of exposure to the agent.”
Peak saturation value of chlorine gas is achieved in static wind conditions and up to 3.6 m/s; wind of up to 10 m/s, or deployment at higher altitudes, will tend to rapidly disperse chlorine gas, per Pei & Zude (2014)
Prevailing wind flows in Ukraine are “In the north, east, and south, the easterly and southeasterly winds prevail, in the west – northwesterly and westerly, while in the southwest – southerly and southeasterly” at 2-5 m/s, according to the National Atlas of Ukraine; per AccuWeather, at time of writing, they look like this:
At time of writing, the most recent Institute for Study of War map looks like this:
Substantial withdrawal of Russian forces around the Kyiv area, along with counter-attacks in the north of the country, continue to push back Russian lines in the north; major counter-attacks by Ukrainian forces are also reported in the east, and although the seizure of Mariupol continues to grind forward, Ukrainian counter-attacks around Kherson and Mykolaiv appear to be successfully pushing back Russian forces into the Crimea.
Assume the following:
Russia wants to deploy chemical weapons in a major city with political/symbolic value
This limits the range of possible targets considerably to Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Zaropizhia, Dnipro, Kherson and Mykolaiv. It also suggests a potential added dimension to “withdrawal” and redeployment of troops around the Kyiv salient.Russia wants to blame it on Ukraine
This limits the range of possible deployed agents to only what Ukraine would have on hand; this makes a nuclear attack that is blamed on Ukraine, for instance, less likely, along with certain types of biological and chemical attacks which would be implausible vectors of attack for Ukraine (e.g., novichok, which is only known to be used by Russia)
Then, this suggests not only that troop withdrawals are potentially a signal of where Russia plans to deploy chemical/biological weapons, but also that civilian evacuations may constitute a similar signal. That would mean that anywhere that forced evacuations have been reported, especially in the east of the country and the Kyiv salient, should be considered a high-risk location as well. Based on the Night Wolves video above, that would then include Rubizhne.
Further, if evacuations are focused on “Russia-friendly” regions or populations within a specific urban area, that may suggest they are being evacuated ahead of an attack intended to affect only pro-Ukrainian civilians.
As with all war, serious fog-of-war issues do pertain here; and because we have to wait for responsible, fact-checked outlets to verify that a thing is happening, we are acting on days-old data and assumptions.
Even within these parameters, however, the conjunction of mass evacuations from Ukraine, and potential chemical/biological weapons deployment in Ukraine, should be read more closely than I think it’s being right now.