Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has slammed as a false information release the media reports that toxic gas was allegedly dispersed in the area where a Russian helicopter was earlier shot down in Syria.
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The Syrian and Russian governments jointly announced “safe corridors” through which civilians could leave Aleppo, but very few have enough trust to embark on that journey.
The Russian defence ministry said the helicopter was targeted after delivering humanitarian aid to Aleppo, although pictures on social media showed it was armed with rocket pods.
The group, which describes itself as a neutral band of search-and-rescue volunteers, posted a video on YouTube apparently showing numerous men struggling to breathe and being given oxygen masks by people in civil-defense uniforms.
According to a Syrian military source, about 5,000 pro-regime fighters, including Iranian forces and the powerful Lebanese Shiah movement Hezbollah, are taking part in the battle for the city, including fighting north of Aleppo.
Three crew and two officers were returning to Hmeimim base in Idlib province when the helicopter was brought down by ground fire.
At least 30 people, including children and women, were killed in government-controlled areas of the Syrian city of Aleppo from recent shelling by rebel forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday.
In July, a Mi-25 attack helicopter was shot down near Palmyra, killing two Russian pilots.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter.
“Five civilians were killed and eight others suffered suffocation due to a terrorist attack with shells containing poisonous gas”, Aleppo’s health director Mohamad Hazouri told the Syrian Arab News Agency (Sana), the official agency of the Assad regime.
The United States called on Russian Federation and the Syrian government on Monday to refrain from offensive operations in Syria, as fighting continued on the day US Secretary of State John Kerry hoped a political transition could begin.
The progress came a week after the army severed the last rebel supply route connecting rebel-held areas in the northern countryside of Aleppo, with rebel-controlled parts in the eastern part of the city.
It’s the biggest single loss for Russia in Syria from the time when Russian warplanes started executing airstrikes in September last year in a country ravaged by a five-year war.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to United Nations figures.
The U.N. estimates some 300,000 people are still trapped in the rebel section of Aleppo, with dwindling food and medical supplies.
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Jihadists and rebel groups launched a major assault Sunday on the southern edges of the divided city in a bid to break a government siege of eastern opposition-held neighbourhoods.
