The Russia thread.
Out of context: Reply #694
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How Russia worked to undermine UN bioweapons investigations
The Ghouta attack and attribution. In the early morning hours of Aug. 21, 2013, Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus, was attacked by specially designed surface-to-surface rockets with 50-liter payloads of the nerve agent sarin. The falling night temperatures meant the air was moving downwards towards the ground, maximizing the potential impact of the gas.
As the rockets pounded houses, apartment buildings, stone-tiled terraces, and backyards in Ghouta, the heavy gas they released stayed close to the ground, penetrating into basements where people were seeking shelter.
The first responders arriving on the scene described large numbers of people lying on the ground, many of them dead or unconscious. An officer with the rebel Free Syrian Army, Captain Alla’a al-Basha, who came with his team to help, recounted: “I saw bodies scattered in the streets. I saw whole houses – none of their residents were alive.” He described seeing victims struggling to breathe, writhing in distress. He saw a woman tearing at her clothes as she suffocated.