Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that US cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base broke international law and have seriously hurt US-Russia relations, news agencies cited the Kremlin as saying on Friday.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying that the Russian leader, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, regarded the US action as “aggression against a sovereign nation” on a “made-up pretext” and as a cynical attempt to distract the world from civilian deaths in Iraq.
Peskov was quoted as saying that Russia did not believe that Syria possessed chemical weapons and that the US move would inevitably create a serious obstacle to creating an international coalition to fight terrorism, an idea that Putin has repeatedly pushed.
Russia’s deputy UN envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, warned on Thursday of “negative consequences” if the United States carries out military strikes on Syria over a deadly toxic gas attack.
“We have to think about negative consequences, negative consequences, and all the responsibility if military action occurred will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise,” Safronkov told reporters when asked about possible US strikes.
When asked what those negative consequences could be, he said:
Air strikes by the United States on a Syrian air base show Washington is guilty of political double standards, the RIA news agency cited Yury Shvitkin, deputy head of the Russian lower house of parliament´s defence committee, as saying on Friday.
He said the United States was using the Daesh militant group as a tool for its own geopolitical interests.
US President Donald Trump ordered a massive military strike on a Syrian air base Thursday, in retaliation for a “barbaric” chemical attack he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad. Trump´s visceral reaction to the suspected sarin attack prompted a swift and massive response, with the US firing 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat Airfield at 8:40 pm Eastern Time (0040 GMT), according to officials.
The missiles were fired from the USS Porter and the USS Ross, which belong to the US Navy´s Sixth Fleet and are located in the eastern Mediterranean. The strike targeted radars, aircraft, air defense systems and other logistical components at the military base south of Homs in central Syria, from where Washington believes Tuesday´s deadly strike was launched.
