The United States and the European Union are accusing Moscow of quashing diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, a claim Russian Federation rejected.
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The administration has made clear it won’t use military force against Syria’s government.
US officials had considered a humanitarian airlift to rebel-held areas, which would require escorts by USA warplanes, but this has been deemed too risky and has been “moved down the list”, one official said.
Adham Sahloul of the USA -based Syrian American Medical Society, which supports the two hospitals, said the attacks on the medical facilities took place at the same time, suggesting they were deliberately targeted. -Russian ceasefire collapsed earlier this month and gave way to a Russia and Iran-backed offensive in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
There were no initial reports of casualties there, but medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said two patients had been killed at the other hospital, in shelling which took it out of service as well, leaving east Aleppo with only seven doctors in a position to undertake surgery.
As the wounded were brought into the hospital, one of five shells fired in a sequence fell at the emergency entrance, killing a person who was accompanying a wounded patient, al-Aref said.
Russian Federation said it supports a 48-hour cease-fire in Aleppo, but not a longer truce proposed by the U.S.
“There is no notion or indication of seriousness of goal with what is taking place right now”, he told a conference in Washington.
Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Blinken said “all of the outside patrons are going to throw in more and more weaponry against Russian Federation”.
His statement drew a strong reaction from Moscow on Thursday, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling it clumsy and unhelpful. It was the stiffest USA warning to the Russians since the September 19 collapse of a truce they jointly brokered.
Russian Defense Ministry affirms that it has information prove the existence of United States military experts who are planning and leading the militants’ operations in Syria secretly, especially in Aleppo.
Russian officials have accused the United States of siding with “terrorists” in Syria, in a sign of escalating tensions between Moscow and Washington amid the battle for Aleppo.
“We can’t assess those statements as anything else but a call, a directive for action”, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, congratulated Kerry on negotiating the agreement, but said that “now, we are clearly at an inflection point”.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said that what Assad and Russian Federation were doing in Aleppo was “soul-shattering”. “Why are we still engaged in a conversation in which we have a “partner” that continues to undermine our purposes in Syria?”
“In some cases, we won’t discuss them. because we’re invested in trying to make the original plan work”. “If this now gets to the point where the civil war actually accelerates, all the outside patrons are going to throw in more and more weaponry against Russian Federation, and Russia will be left propping up Assad in ever smaller pieces of Syria”. US President Barack Obama also said that Russian Federation could get caught up in the Syrian “quagmire” and drew parallels with the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.
Russian Federation is “now in a position of having gotten in, it’s very, very hard to get out because Assad can not win”, Blinken said.
“What they are doing is a gift to ISIL (Daish) and (Nusra Front), the groups that they claim that they want to stop”, she said.
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Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., urged Blinken to settle quickly on new, viable options ending the war.
