Mr Putin’s cover letter to State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov said: “The reservations made by the USSR to the Protocol in 1928 provided for using such weapons against non-signatory states or in retaliation for enemy attacks.
“As Russia has signed the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, as well as the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, the removal of the reservations to the Protocol does not change any of Russia’s international commitments in these spheres.”