It comes after the US said on Wednesday that Russia has violated an international chemical weapons convention by using chloropicrin.
Colonel de Bretton-Gordon said: “The use of it is hugely significant. It is against the rules of war.”
Colonel de Bretton-Gordon said: “If you breathe this stuff, it stings your eyes and is very, very unpleasant, lasting five or ten minutes.”
The former military man said he knows from experience, “having had a few lungfuls myself”.
He added: “You can’t breathe, every exposed bit of your skin stings, your eyes are inflamed. It incapacitates you. You can’t do anything for the five or six minutes before you have got it all out of you. It is horrendous.”
Now, Putin’s men are reportedly using it to draw Ukrainian troops out of the trenches to attack them out in the open.
According to Colonel de Bretton Gordon, this is why Russia has been making ground in the last few months.
NATO should be racing to provide Ukraine with gas masks, he added.
Colonel de Bretton Gordon said: “There is a simple solution. You just give the Ukrainians gas masks so it won’t have the same impact.
“It is one of these moral issues. It is a chemical weapon at the lower end of the spectrum.
“Hopefully it will encourage NATO countries and others to the Ukrainians to ensure they can prevail.”
The US has since sanctioned entities associated with Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programmes as it issuing a statement condemning their usage earlier this week.
The statement read: “The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield.”
But Russia has blasted the US for the latest round of sanctions.
Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said: “In Washington they don’t seem to understand that Russia and the Russians cannot be intimidated by their decisions.
“They do not realize that their illegitimate tricks only alienate other states. In fact, they fertilize the soil of doubts about the constructiveness of America’s current role in the world.”
He added: “This is an example of the continuation of numerous Russophobic actions taken by the United States in recent days.”
The International Criminal Court, based in Hague in the Netherlands, issued a war crimes arrest warrant for Putin back in March 2023.
But the Russian President remains at large as Russia does not recognise the court and does not extradite its citizens.
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