Putin Responds to Syria Missile Strikes - 'Act of Aggression...'
Russian officials launched a verbal onslaught against President Donald Trump on Saturday, hours after Trump approved attacks on Syria to retaliate for the country’s use of chemical weapons against its own people.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin called Friday night’s American attack against Syrian targets involved in the making of chemical weapons an “act of aggression,” USA Today reported.
Russia’s envoy to the U.S. said Russia will not sit by while its ally is attacked.
Statement by the Ambassador Antonov on the strikes on #Syria:
A pre-designed scenario is being implemented. Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.
All responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris. pic.twitter.com/QEmWEffUzx— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) April 14, 2018
“We are being threatened,” said Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., according to The Guardian. “We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.”
On Friday night, American planes and cruise missiles attacked targets in Syria. Trump said the attacks would continue “until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”
Gen. Joseph Dunford said the U.S. targeted a research facility in Damascus and two storage sites in Homs, The Sun reported.
During a brief Friday night statement, Trump castigated Russia and Iran for supporting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
“To Iran and Russia, I ask, what kind of nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?” Trump said, according to CBS. “The nations of the world can be judged by the friends they keep.”
Trump added a message to Russia, which since 2015 has been aiding Assad.
“Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or if it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace,” he said. “Hopefully someday we’ll get along with Russia, and maybe even Iran, but maybe not.”
Antonov said insulting Putin was “unacceptable and inadmissible”.
Russian legislator Alexander Sherin repaid Trump’s jab at Russia with an insult to Trump.
Trump “can be called Adolf Hitler No 2 of our time because, you see, he even chose the time that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union,” referring to the pre-dawn hours of 1941 when Hitler invaded the then-Soviet Union.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the attack disrupted any chance for peace in Syria.
“You have to be quite abnormal to attack Syria’s capital just at the moment when it had a chance for a peaceful future,” she said.
BREAKING: Russia vs UK: Putin's military says Syria gas attack was 'staged and directed by UK https://t.co/7Ez0s3yf7B pic.twitter.com/xYAPi9Ogr8
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) April 13, 2018
The American attack was triggered by chemical weapons attacks on rebel-held areas of Douma, not far from Damascus. At least 70 people were reported killed and more than 500 injured. The United States, Britain and France have said Syria was responsible for the attacks. Russia has argued that the attack was a fake and that it can prove it was orchestrated by Britain as a pretext for intervention.
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