Russia’s White Phosphorus Attacks in Ukraine

Russia is escalating its chemical warfare in Ukraine—a campaign designed, in the words of Europe’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, “to cause as much pain and suffering so that Ukraine would surrender. And, you know, it’s really … unbearable.”

In July 2025, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) reported that the Russian forces used more than 10,000 incidents of chemical weapons use against the Ukrainian Armed Forces since

the full-scale invasion began. Kyiv has now handed the evidence to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.

From chloropicrin to white phosphorus

The picture painted by allies is stark. Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans warns that Russia is deploying a broad arsenal of chemical agents in a systematic and large-scale way, including chloropicrin—a World War I–era choking agent that can be lethal in enclosed spaces.

Behind the front line, European intelligence agencies  report that Moscow is pouring money into chemical weapons research, expanding labs, and recruiting scientists to sustain the programme. The expansion goes beyond chemical weapons, reaching into incendiary arsenals as well.

A September 2025 investigation by RFE/RL’s Schemes unit adds another layer: the sanctioned Scientific Research Institute for Applied Chemistry (NIIPH) has stepped up production using domestic supply chains of chemical weapons and, despite sanctions, imported a key precursor for white phosphorus from China—a substance prohibited in civilian areas under international law.

Sanctions on weapons producers have done little to slow procurement. White phosphorus continues to fall on Ukrainian cities and trenches alike, making chemical and incendiary warfare not a marginal tactic, but a central pillar of Russia’s military strategy.

What is white phosphorus?

White phosphorus is a waxy, pale-yellow substance with a faint garlic smell that ignites the instant it touches oxygen, spewing thick white smoke. It burns at temperatures of up to 1,300°C and, on contact with skin, eats straight through to the bone. Water doesn’t extinguish it—it only spreads the fire.

 Incendiary weapons are notorious for their horrific human cost. Those who survive the immediate harm face a lifetime of physical and psychological scars.

Human Rights Watch

The weapon’s cruelty lies in its persistence. Burning fragments can embed in skin and continue to burn, producing deep, painful wounds that may re-ignite on exposure to air. The smoke itself is corrosive, scarring the respiratory tract and, in high doses, poisoning the body, causing multiple organ failure. People can die simply from inhaling white phosphorus.

Armed forces primarily use white phosphorus as a smoke screen for illumination and target marking; Russia, less legitimately, exploits its incendiary power. Particles can smoulder beneath surfaces such as soil and clothing, reigniting when exposed to oxygen again. The material is exceptionally difficult and dangerous to control. 

Legally, white phosphorus sits in a grey zone. Though often described as a chemical weapon, it is classified under international law as an incendiary, covered by a different treaty, Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). That creates loopholes in how and when it can be restricted because it is deemed “multipurpose,” not banned outright. This allows states, such as Russia, to continue to indiscriminately deploy this weapon with impunity.

When has Russia used white phosphorus?

It’s been widely reported that Russia has used chemical weapons throughout its time waging war against Ukraine. In March 2022, just weeks after the full-scale invasion began, at a summit of Nato leaders in Brussels, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that Russia used white phosphorus bombs, killing children.

During the first month of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine was under several incendiary attacks by Russian forces. The then Mayor of Irpin, Oleksandr Markushyn, reported that Russia had been targeting the Kyiv region with white phosphorus. 

Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk with incendiary shells containing phosphorus, Oleksiy Biloshytskiy, Kyiv’s First Deputy Chief of the Department of Patrol Police, confirmed. Biloshytskyi also earlier confirmed that the village of Pospana, in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, had also been hit with white phosphorus.

Global Security Editor at ITV, Rohit Kachroo, shared what he saw that night from Kyiv’s city centre. 

During the siege of Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, Russian forces unleashed white phosphorus bombs. Borysivna , a medic from the Hospitalliers Battalion sheltering inside the plant, confirmed the attack to UNITED24 Media. She says that an incendiary firestorm burned through their dwindling food supplies. When the flames finally died, they sifted through the ash for scraps—before being captured and taken as prisoners of war.

“Very few who weren’t in bunkers survived,” Borysivna recalls.

In December 2022, Mariinka in Donetsk came under white phosphorus attack. Similar strikes followed in 2023 in cities like Bakhmut, and again in 2024, showing a clear pattern of escalation.

Experts, including Human Rights Watch, have long urged tougher international measures to protect civilians from the “disturbing” use of incendiary weapons in conflicts worldwide. Yet Russia continues to sidestep sanctions on its weapons producers and expand its arsenal unchecked.

Who is supplying Russia with phosphorus?

Russia’s Research Institute of Applied Chemistry (NIIPH)—the self-declared flagship of Russian pyrotechnics—sits under sweeping sanctions from the US, EU, UK, Switzerland, Japan, and Ukraine. Yet the institute continues to fuel Russia’s war machine.

An investigation by RFE/RL’s Schemes revealed that while NIIPH relies heavily on domestic components for chemical weapons production, it still secures critical raw materials from abroad. Namely, red phosphorus—which can be converted into white phosphorus—from Chinese companies. 

NIIPH purchased over $1 million worth of red phosphorus from China between 2022 and 2023—roughly a quarter of all such imports into Russia during that period, according to Russian customs data reviewed by Schemes. Deliveries on this scale would require at least two freight cars. 

The primary supplier was Yunnan Phosphorus, which represented another Chinese company, Dongguan Haofei. Both companies are small on paper but investigators suggest, ultimately controlled by Beijing to facilitate trade in strategically vital goods.

The institute has not limited itself to incendiaries. NIIPH is also manufacturing RG-Vo toxic gas grenades, deployed frequently by Russian forces since late 2023. These weapons are supplied directly to units of Russia’s mobile radiation, chemical, and biological defense brigades.

Russia’s sanction-evasion strategy is equally dependent on unlisted domestic firms and Chinese support. RFE/RL’s investigation uncovered that EurochemInvest, an unsanctioned Russian company, supplied NIIPH with solvents such as chloroform and acetone. Meanwhile, China continues to provide Russia with not only phosphorus but also rare metals used in missiles, drones, and tanks—defying bans on direct supplies to Russian defense companies and the export of red phosphorus to the Russian Federation.

Why white/red phosphorus weapons aren’t “properly” sanctioned

White phosphorus and its precursor, red phosphorus, fall into a legal grey zone. They are incendiary agents—not “chemical weapons” under the CCW—because they burn rather than poison. That loophole leaves them outside the treaty’s core prohibitions.

The CCW does cover incendiaries under Protocol III, but even here, protection is riddled with gaps. 

Human Rights Watch has warned that the protocol “failed to provide adequate protection for civilians” because of two fatal loopholes. It excludes “multipurpose” munitions like phosphorus rounds used for smoke or signalling, despite their identical capacity to burn flesh, and it bans air-dropped incendiaries in populated areas while still permitting ground-launched versions—a hollow distinction when the devastation is the same.

Proving illegality in court requires not just evidence of use, but evidence of deliberate use against civilians or civilian areas, setting an impossibly high bar for accountability.

Human Rights Watch calls for states to act: open negotiations to strengthen international law and close the loopholes.

Without stronger international enforcement, Russia will continue to deploy white phosphorus with near-total impunity.

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