Syria
Thursday 20 July 2017
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Vladimir Putin
Russian President
“Those are [IS] militants” [Vladimir Putin] “You wouldn’t want to join [IS] if you saw that” [Oliver Stone].
Read more...While Putin evidently believed the video was taken from recent Russian air strikes in Syria, in fact, it is a clip evidently of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan released in 2009. -
Maria Zakharova
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson
“There has been a real substitution of information. The CNN report was aimed at manipulating public opinion.”
Read more...It is unclear why Zakharova singled out CNN for criticism when Daqneesh’s story had been widely covered by international media. The timing of her comments, several weeks after the boy reappeared, may well be more to do with a scandal at CNN. -
Russian Defense Ministry
unidentified 'source'
“The Israelis simply struck the site from which the shelling had been carried out. As a result of this air strike, two of the terrorists’ tanks and a heavy machine gun were destroyed.”
Read more...Russian state media have cited claims from the Ministry of Defense that the Israeli Air Force bombed Islamist militants rather than Syrian regime forces. Unfortunately, Syrian state television had already reported that Israel had bombed their positions. -
Gen. Sergei Surovikin
Commander of Russian forces in Syria
"Instead of eliminating terrorists guilty of killing hundreds and thousands of Syrian civilians, the U.S.-led coalition together with the Democratic Forces Union [Syrian Democratic Forces] controlled by it, enters into collusion with ringleaders of the ISIL, who give up the settlements they had seized without fighting and head to the provinces where the Syrian government forces are active."
Read more...The commander of Russian forces in Syria said the U.S.-led coalition and the Syrian Democratic Forces have entered “into collusion” with Islamic State “ringleaders” and given them safe passage “south of Raqqah,” and that IS left the city “without fighting.” However, the territory south of Raqqah is controlled by IS, which means they do not need a safe corridor to travel there, while IS is reportedly fighting U.S.-backed forces for every street inside the city. -
Vladimir Putin
President, Russia
“We are aware of the accusations of the use of chemical weapons. There is no proof whatsoever! We offered right after it happened to conduct an inspection exactly at the airport from where President Assad’s aircraft allegedly took off with chemical weapons. They refused – nobody wants that. …because they were afraid that this falsification would be exposed – it’s as simple as that. Regarding the people who were killed or suffered from the use of weapons, including chemical weapons – that is false information.”
Read more...Vladimir Putin said the United States and its allies refused to investigate chemical attacks that took place in Syria in April because they feared the probe would reveal that the attacks were “falsified” and there was no proof the regime of Bashar al-Assad possesses and has used chemical weapons. Putin also claimed that reports about the victims of such attacks is “false information.” However, France, Turkey and the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have each conducted an independent investigation and produced detailed reports showing the Assad regime carried out sarin gas attacks. -
Leonid Slutsky
Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Relations Committee
“While Russia is making enormous efforts to support the reconciliation process in Syria, the United States, with its actions, is weakening the position of forces carrying out the fight against Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra (terrorist organizations banned in the Russian Federation) and actually ‘playing into the hands’ of those terrorist groups.”
Read more...A prominent member of Russia’s parliament said the U.S. was “playing into the hands” of Islamic State and other terrorists by launching an airstrike against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. strike was in fact part of an effort to stop repeated violations of the deconfliction zone by Syrian government forces that have endangered the lives of American troops. -
Russian Defense Ministry
Ministry's Center for the Reconciliation of the Warring Sides in Syria
“According to information from a number of sources among local residents and opposition formations … special ‘video brigades’ carried out staged filming in the past week of the alleged consequences of shelling and airstrikes, including the use of ‘poisonous substances.”
Read more...Russia has accused Al Jazeera of faking videos of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. But no matter how many times they rewrite the story, it looks extremely flimsy. -
Yevgeny Satanovsky
President, Institute of the Middle East, Russia
“All soil samples, fragments and shells with the same sarin found in Aleppo were long ago handed over to the U.N. by the Russian Aerospace Forces. But no one intended or intends to test them or investigate the details of the case.”
Read more...The president of the Moscow-based Institute of the Middle East, Yevgeny Satanovsky, accused the United Nations of ignoring samples of the chemical weapon sarin used in earlier incidents in Syria’s Aleppo province that the Russian military supposedly handed over to the U.N., suggesting the world body would ignore evidence of a sarin poisoning incident in Idlib province on April 4. However, Russia did not hand over samples from the earlier incidents. -
Igor Konashenkov
Spokesman, Russian Ministry of Defense
“According to data from Russian means of objective control of the airspace, yesterday between 11:30 to 12:30, local time, Syrian aircraft carried out strikes on the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun against a large warehouse of ammunition of the terrorists and a cluster of military equipment. On the territory of this warehouse, there were workshops for the manufacture of bombs filled with toxic agents."
Read more...The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Wednesday that the previous day’s devastating poisonous gassing in Khan Sheikhoun was accidently caused by an airstrike on a terrorist facility. Yet, the time that the gas poisoning was first reported preceded by at least five hours the time the Russian Defense Ministry says the alleged airstrike took place. Meanwhile, a leading chemical warfare expert dismissed the Russian version of events as “rubbish.” -
Russian Embassy to the United Kingdom
“Russia welcomes #Oscars award for “White Helmets” film. Indeed, they are actors serving an agenda, not rescuers. #OscarMistake”
Read more...Despite the Russian embassy claim, the so-called White Helmets have been documented repeatedly doing rescue work. Journalists have been eyewitness to many of the groups' rescue efforts, crucially documenting much of it on video. A Canadian journalist working for RT claimed actors were used in White Helmet videos of rescues. However, other media were able to disprove this claim. -
Sergei Ryabkov
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
“We call attention to the fact their body of evidence isn't simply thin or full of holes, but that it's practically non-existent."
Read more...Russia has continued to deny the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime in Syria despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. -
Sergei Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister
"We are convinced that we acted correctly when we responded positively to the request of the lawful government of Syria, a UN member state, a country whose capital was two to three weeks away from being seized by the terrorists.”
Read more...The Assad regime was in trouble by the time Russia intervened in Syria in the early fall of 2015. But anti-Assad rebels were not focused on Damascus, nor were the extremist groups Islamic State or Al-Qaeda making inroads near the capital.