What would happen if 400k 2-liter bottles of tainted vodka—with warnings of such on the labels—where dropped on or near Russian military bases, over Russia-occupied Ukraine? (click for more details)
What would happen if 400 000 2-liter bottles of tainted vodka—with warnings of such on the labels—where dropped on or near Russian military bases, or areas of heavy Russian troop concentrations, over Russia-occupied Ukraine, or in Russia <100 km from the border?
x1. Perhaps they could be dropped with parachute or padding (ideally with biodegradable padding).
x2. Each bottle would have a label with the ingredients listed in fairly large print, and warning of the toxicity. In addition to it being in Russian, it would also be written, in smaller print, in Ukrainian, Chechen, Buryat, Korean, Farsi, Belarusian, and Chinese.
x3. Each of 100 000 bottles would 1.5 L of vodka and 500 mL of pure methanol (and no other toxins).
Note: methanol toxicity might be mitigated if drunk in small amounts.
x4. Each of 100 000 bottles would have 10 mg of botulinum toxin (and no other toxins).
Note: (WP) "toxicity might be denatured and thus deactivated at temperatures greater than 85°C (185 °F) for five minutes," though the boiling point of ethanol is 78.2°C (172.8°F)—thus one might need a pressure cooker.
x5. Each of 100 000 bottles would have 20 mg LSD (and no other toxins).
IIUC,
x6. Each of 100 000 bottles would have 1.50 L of vodka and 500 mL of brine with 26% salinity (and no other toxins).
essentially brine mixed into the vodka.
x7. Each of the 400 000 sbottle would have 1 bag of 100 grams of marijuana, and 1 bag of 100 grams of dried psilocybin mushroom, attached to it.
8 replies
War crime.
How is it a war crime?
and
Poisoning. War crime.
(my bold)
The label would clearly state that it is 1.5 L of vodka and 500 mL of methanol, and that methanol is dangerous—indeed if someone drank ⅕th of this bottle's contents, wt:thon would probably die, and 50 mL of it could cause permanent blindness. "You are advised not to drink any of this!"
Similar warnings would be on all the bottles.
As for the marijuana and dried psilocybin mushrooms, neither are really fatal and as I've described, would not be mixed in the vodka, but be in separate bags attached to each bottle of vodka.
Still counts.
Where does it say so?
It depends on exactly which set of laws our hypothetical boozy booby trapper is bound by. I'm a US citizen so here are a couple references I'm using as starting points (paraphrased but with excerpts in spoiler tags):
::: spoiler 18 USC § 2441: War crimes are defined in several different documents including (but not limited to) the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949*, the Annex to the Hague Convention IV† and the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996‡. (footnotes in spoiler)
(1) Prohibited conduct.-In subsection (c)(3), the term "grave breach of common Article 3" means any conduct... as follows: ...
*: Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949:
†: Annex to the Hague Convention IV:
‡: Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices:
::: spoiler 18 USC § 229: Chemical weapons aren't allowed either.
Source: 18 USC §2441 - War crimes and 18 USC §229 - Chemical Weapons, United States House of Representatives.
For items 3-7 in your list, #6 is the only one that might not fall under the definition of a chemical weapon depending on other factors. #3, 4, 5 and 7 are pretty straightforward poisoning by the definitions provided above. Even the LSD and other drugs you might think of as recreational are considered incapacitating agents in this context. Here's a video of a British army experiment in the '60s about tripping balls on LSD with guns in the woods. Timestamp (5:25) is when it starts to get good but that was just one of several psychoactive compounds tested and weaponized during the Cold War.
Another part of the trouble is that once the goods are dropped, anyone could find and consume them. Sure, you've got warnings but that's no guarantee. Maybe the person who stumbles on the cache is illiterate or blind or any number of other things that could get in the way of understanding the situation. It's also the kind of thing that, once discovered, would be a gift to Kremlin PR firms.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has this PDF listing off various treaties / protocols / etc. by category and the signatories of each if you want to see which conditions apply to your scenario. They tend to have a lot of overlap in language and agreement on some of the key points above though.
First of all, thank you for the effort and details. 🙂
(I should also read the links. I saw the video.)
Such has me thinking. 🙂
Now what if mines and booby-traps were laid, and next to them were signs clearly marking them as such? Let's say they even gave directions and distances?
"Warning: 10 to 15 meters from here, between 10° to 20° south of east of here, is a booby trap that's as powerful as 10 hand grenades. It is marked with a 1 to 1.2 meter tall stick with a red flag. NO NOT APPROACH! but if you do approach, do so with extreme caution.
Actually, as I think of it, I might add, "30 to 60 cm north of the booby trap is a 10 liter jug of wine and an envelop with ₽10000. The wine is safe to drink, but again, it's close to a booby trap. Do not approach.
Note it doesn't mention roubles or marijuana. Also, presumably the ban is on food and drink is attached to the booby trap, though "associated" could be a bit murky, but again, there is the warning.
Okay, this would probably be hard, if not impossible, to argue out of.
There are a lot of chemicals "which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals.": codeine, diesel, salt, ethanol, or laundry bleach.
Arguably regular alcohol can be incapacitating, but if a retreating army left 1000 of loose bottles of beer behind, would that be considered chemical warfare? Again, this is not using LSD to brainwash a soldier, get wt:thon to give up information, or add to the water supply without people knowing;
and as I think about it, what if an army dumped a lot of LSD into a water reservoir, and dropped leaflets telling what they did, and informed the commanders of the opposing armed forces that they will give them bottles of untainted water—they don't even have to surrender.
IIUC, during the US Civil War, some Union commander had his soldiers sneak into a Confederate camp and kill all of their pack animals. Few if any Confederate soldiers died, but it did mean that without the pack animals, the Confederates lost the ability to cross the desert in a campaign, and the Confederates had to retreat.
But again, no one is being forced by the Ukrainian government to take these drugs. If the Russian soldiers can resist taking bad vodka, indeed if ≥99.5% could resist, my idea, if implemented, would have no effect.
So let's say the bottles are marked with the poison symbol (I think the one with the skull and crossbones), with a cartoon of a dead Russian soldiers with "x"s on his eyes. We can also have braille on the labels and maybe the symbols can also be felt.
By the way, how would blind people come across the bottles anyway? Presumably if a blind person accidentally kicked a bottle or hit it with thons guide stick, thon is not going to unscrew the cap and start drinking. Who knows, a Russian truck driver and his buddy might have had to piss and instead of stopping, the buddy grabbed a bottle in the cab, used that, and tossed it out the window. Would the blind person drink or even taste or sniff it?
What are they going to tell Russians? that Ukraine is giving away poisoned vodka? Will conspiracists think that this is part of some anti-drunk campaigns by the government? Would it stop alcoholic soldiers from drinking such? Would it encourage soldiers to go a little AWOL in search of such bottles, leading to a problem in maintaining discipline? Maybe Ukrainian soldiers can carry a few empties (with the little parachutes), fill them with water, and put them in conspicuous places. When reports come in of Russian soldiers going blind, dying, winding up in iron lungs, or firing at hallucinations, wasting ammo and revealing positions, along with people back home saying that the guy was a noted booze-chaser who occasionally spent the children's milk money on vodka, it might wind up on places such as r/RussianCircus.
Again, thank you for the effort and details. 🙂