“We are ready for such information attacks”, he said in a live broadcast from the Kremlin.
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The White House said on Thursday it could not confirm reports that Iranian troops have launched a ground offensive in Syria, but said any such development would be an “apt and powerful illustration” that Russia’s military actions have worsened the conflict.
Cook said that a US defense team led by Elissa Slotkin, the acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for global Security Affairs, conferred by video Thursday with Russian Defense Ministry officials on “de-conflicting” USA and Russian air activities over Syria but little had been resolved.
A top French diplomat said France doesn’t want to engage in formal diplomatic discussions about Syria unless Russian Federation agrees to target only extremists and agrees that eventually Assad must go.
Russia’s air strikes in support of Syrian forces began on Wednesday in what Mr Putin called a pre-emptive strike against militants.
Mr Putin has said Russian Federation would be fighting “gangs of global terrorists”. The United States and allies fear that Russian Federation, which has backed the Assad family since the current leader’s father was in power, is using the air campaign as a pretext to go after anti-Assad rebels that include CIA-backed groups.
“All the airstrikes are being conducted in coordination with the Syrian Army command”.
He also echoed Warren in saying that the airstrikes conducted Wednesday and Thursday by Russian Sukhoi warplanes were not aimed at ISIS but appeared to be created to prop up the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The airstrikes triggered a chorus of criticism from Congressional Republicans who charged that the Russian airstrikes would only prolong the civil war in Syria which already has killed more than 200,000, according to the United Nations, displaced more than four million and sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe.
With American and allied airstrikes daily, and now Russian warplanes in the Syrian airspace, the war is taking on a unsafe new dimension.
So far, the Russian airstrikes have been in western Syria. He told reporters that Russian airstrikes killed 36 civilians, with five children among the dead.
The Russian Defense Ministry statement Friday said the latest wave of airstrikes targeted only IS and destroyed a command post near Daret Azzeh in the Aleppo region and hit a field camp near Maaret al-Numan in the Idlib region, wiping out bunkers and weapons stores. The claim could not be independently verified.
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The ministry’s spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, said the “Islamic Republic of Iran considers military action by Russian Federation against armed terrorist groups to be a step toward fighting terrorism and toward resolving the current crisis” in Syria.
