Ukraine doesn’t expect NATO’s help if Russia uses chemical attack

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday said he does not expect that NATO would defend Ukraine if Russia launched a chemical weapons attack against the country.

“When you’re asking me whether NATO will defend us, well, we do not have — we do not expect that” Kuleba told moderator Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“What we are asking is very simple thing. We say arm Ukraine, and we will do the rest. Give us all the weapons necessary, and we will fight for our own land and for our people,” Kuleba said.

Pressed on if he has any additional information regarding a potential chemical weapons attack in Ukraine perpetrated by Russia, Kuleba said Kyiv is not aware of any details but does not “exclude that option.”

He pointed to reports that Russia has used prohibited weapons in its conflict against Ukraine.

“We don’t know the details, but we do not exclude that option because we see that Russia is using one prohibited weapon after another to break us down, and United Nations have already confirmed that some of the internationally prohibited weapons have been used against Ukrainian civilians, against our cities,” Kuleba said.

“So we will work closely with the United States and other partners trying to identify where chemical weapons can or may be used by Russia,” he added.

The comments come as Biden administration officials are raising alarms regarding the threat of Russia potentially escalating the conflict in Ukraine through the use of chemical weapons.