Kiev’s forces released the toxic gas in an attempt to slow Russian advance, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow
Ukrainian troops have blown up an ammonia pipeline and caused a toxic spill during their retreat in Donetsk Region on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry has said.
The Soviet-era Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline used to carry the highly toxic liquefied gas from Russia to Ukraine, prior to the escalation of the conflict between the two countries.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces mined a branch of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline,” and blew it up to slow the advance of Russian forces in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The blast resulted “in the release of residual ammonia through the damaged section,” it added. No Russian troops were hurt as a result, the ministry said.
On the video published by the MOD, clouds of the bubbling gas could be seen billowing from underground and spreading into the surrounding countryside.
Earlier this year, Russia warned that Kiev was preparing to provoke a major ecological disaster by sabotaging a different portion of the pipeline, and blame it on Moscow.
In July, Maj. Gen. Aleksey Rtishchev, the commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, accused international chemical weapons watchdog OPCW of ignoring Moscow’s reports of Ukrainian violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention, but taking Kiev’s accusations at face value.
A section of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline in Kharkov Region was blown up in 2023, injuring several civilians, in what Moscow called Ukrainian sabotage.
