Ukraine forces holed up in the besieged city of Mariupol announced late on Monday the Russians had used “a poisonous substance of unknown origin” – but in the following 24 hours, evidence to corroborate this was a chemical weapons attack has proved harder to find.
A scant initial report, circulating on social media, described victims as having “respiratory failure” and a rather specific diagnosis of “vestibulo-atactic syndrome”, nominally inner-ear problems leading to dizziness and perhaps vomiting, eye twitching and loss of balance.
