Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned U.S. cruise
missile strikes on Syria on Friday, warning the move would further damage
already battered U.S.-Russia relations which Moscow had hoped President Donald
Trump would revive.
U.S. officials said they had informed Russian forces ahead
of the strikes, intended to punish the Syrian government for what they say was
a chemical weapons attack on Wednesday, and had avoided hitting Russian
personnel.
Satellite imagery suggests the Shayrat air base that was
struck in western Syria is home to Russian special forces and military
helicopters, part of the Kremlin’s effort to help the Syrian government fight
Islamic State and other militant groups.
Russia’s main air base and a naval facility were not hit.
Moscow had been hoping to cooperate with Trump to jointly
fight Islamic State in Syria, a move it was banking on to boost U.S.-Russia
ties which are at a post-Cold War low.
After the U.S. strikes, that task now looks harder.
“President Putin views the U.S. strikes on Syria as
aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international
law and on a made-up up pretext,” said a Kremlin statement.
“This step by Washington will inflict major damage on
U.S.-Russia ties.”
Putin, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
was holding a meeting of Russia’s Security Council to discuss the strike on
Friday afternoon and the Russian Foreign Ministry called for an emergency
meeting of the UN Security Council.
A foreign ministry statement said Moscow was suspending a
Syrian air safety agreement with the U. S. originally drawn up to ensure that
the two countries’ planes did not collide.
“It’s clear to any specialist that the decision to launch a
strike was taken in Washington before the events in Idlib (the province where
the gas poisoning took place) which were simply used as a pretext for a show of
force,” the ministry said.
The Russian Defence Ministry meanwhile mocked the
effectiveness of the U.S. strikes, saying only 23 missiles had found their
targets.
It was unclear where another 36 had landed, it said,
promising Syrian air defenses would now be beefed up.
A Russian frigate armed with Kalibr cruise missiles sailed
through the Bosphorus en route to the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours
of Friday morning, according to pictures taken by Turkish bloggers for their
online Bosphorus Naval News project.
It was unclear if that was related to the U.S. strikes.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there were no reports of
any Russians being hurt in the attack.
He said he hoped U.S.-Russia ties would not be irreparably
hurt as a result.
Rex Tillerson is due to make his first visit to Moscow next
week as U.S. secretary of state, an eagerly awaited event in Russia where
politicians have been anxious to try to use the change of administration to
reboot relations.
This story first appeared on The Nation
