Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the war in Ukraine was the result of the West's failure to support Ukraine after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, as well as its inability to punish Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people in Syria and the debacle of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Speaking on Sunday ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Johnson told the BBC: “I think (Russian President Vladimir) Putin was emboldened by a Western failure in Syria to punish Assad for using chemical weapons.”
“Putin was further emboldened in February 2022 by what he'd seen in Afghanistan, and a sort of general sense that the West was on the back foot. He'd seen those appalling pictures of Americans being forced to flee Afghanistan and the UK pulling out as well, and that really did embolden him,” he added.
Last November, Syria’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Dr. Mohammed Katoub, warned that remnants of chemical weapons across the country pose a direct threat to civilians in more than 100 suspected locations.
Katoub said that toxic remnants remain in areas previously struck or used for weapons production and that many of these locations are close to population centers, raising fears of accidental exposure.
Speaking on the first working day of the restored Syrian mission in The Hague, Katoub told the state-run channel Al-Ikhbariah that the Assad regime continued to use chemical weapons for 12 years.
He said the most recent documented incident occurred on December 5, 2024, in the village of Khattab, in the Hama countryside.
Based on reports from the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the Assad regime is responsible for the sarin gas attack on Damascus' Ghouta district on August 21, 2013.
Assad regime forces launched four simultaneous chemical attacks on populated areas in eastern and western Ghouta, including the town of Muadamiyat al-Sham, using at least ten rockets loaded with sarin gas, with a total estimated quantity of approximately 200 liters.
The rockets were launched from designated launchers after midnight, taking advantage of weather conditions that kept the toxic gases close to the ground, resulting in the largest possible number of victims while they slept, a clear indication of a premeditated intent to target civilians demanding political change.
This was compounded by a stifling regime blockade imposed since the end of 2012, which prevented the entry of fuel, medicine, and medical supplies needed to treat the wounded, exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe.
On the morning of April 4, 2017, at approximately 06:49 am, fixed-wing Syrian regime warplanes targeted Khan Sheikoun city in Idlib’s southern suburbs using a missile loaded with poison gas which is believed was a nerve gas.
SNHR documented the deaths of 91 civilians, including 32 children and 23 women, who were asphyxiated by poison gas, which caused cardiac arrest and respiratory muscle paralysis in victims. Additionally, about 520 others suffered from suffocation symptoms, including 12 Civil Defense personnel and six media activists.
On April 7, 2018, the regime launched a chemical attack on Douma city in the Damascus suburbs. SNHR documented that 43 civilians, including 19 children and 17 women died of suffocation, while nearly 550 others were injured.
