Over the past decade, Russia has stepped up its disinformation campaigns to erode trust in arms control across the nuclear, chemical, and biological domains. The new era of rapidly disseminated disinformation poses significant challenges to U.S. national security and, more specifically, to arms control verification and compliance. In this polluted information environment, offense is king.

Syria’s Chemical Weapons Declaration Cannot Be Considered Accurate, Complete, Disarmament Affairs Chief Tells Security CouncilSeveral Members Question Meetings Frequency Given Lack of New Developments 

Mr. Chairman, Director-General, Distinguished Delegates, Civil Society Colleagues:

On November 27, 2023, the Twenty-Eighth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CSP-28) opened in The Hague, Netherlands. This five-day meeting discusses various aspects associated with implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which has been in effect since April 29 1997.

Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city, has been enduring the consequences of Russia's aggression since the outset of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Once known as Artemivsk, it retained this name until 2016, encompassing both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. During the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian occupiers laid claim to Bakhmut as part of their territorial ambitions.