The Sarin – which, according to InformNapalm, could be used by the Russians against the Ukrainian resistance – is a nerve gas with paralyzing effects classified as a chemical weapon of mass destruction. It is a poison 26 times more lethal than cyanide. The actual quantity of the chemical agent available in Russian arsenals is not known, as the gas was officially banned from Moscow with the accession to the Biological Weapons Banning Convention of 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. However, according to the USA and NATO, Russia would have continued to carry out weapons programs, such as missile warheads, which also include the Sarin. Indeed, the Russian Federation has already been accused of using chemical weapons in Syria, where it allegedly hit civilians opposed to Bashar al Assad’s regime in at least three hundred attacks.
Exposure to Sarin gas is lethal even at very low concentrations and death can occur within ten minutes after direct inhalation due to suffocation from respiratory paralysis, unless antidotes are administered quickly. People who absorb a non-lethal dose but do not receive immediate medical attention can suffer permanent neurological damage. It is for this reason that according to InformNapalm the Russian soldiers were given vials of atropine, which is, together with pralidoxime, the antitode par excellence to Sarin.