Russia has become the first country to formally recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan. "We believe that the official recognition of the Government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will give an impetus to the development of productive bilateral cooperation between our countries in various areas,

Chloropicrin is banned in war under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to which Russia is a signatory. Russia is already widely using tear gas, the Dutch defense ministry said, and called the deployment of chloropicrin a "grave violation" of the CWC.