‘Barbaric’ Russia blasts US and UK

Moscow slams Washington, London for accusing it of war crimes in Syria.

Moscow slammed the United States and Britain on Monday for accusing Russia of “barbarism” and war crimes in Syria in speeches at the United Nations.

“We note the overall unacceptable tone and rhetoric of the representatives of the United Kingdom and the United States, which can damage and harm our relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Earlier, the US had accused Moscow of “barbarism” over the worsening carnage in Aleppo as Syrian and Russian warplanes pounded the city in one of the heaviest bombing raids of the five-year war. At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to demand Russia rein in its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and halt intense air strikes, Moscow and Damascus were repeatedly accused of war crimes.

“What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism. It is barbarism,” US ambassador Samantha Power said at the Sunday session.

Some 124 people, mostly civilians, have died since bunker-busting bombs and sophisticated weaponry were unleashed on residential areas in rebel-held eastern Aleppo after the army Thursday launched an operation to take it. “It is difficult to deny that Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes,” said British ambassador Matthew Rycroft adding that the high-tech weaponry had inflicted “a new hell” on war-weary Syrians. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also warned the use of advanced weaponry against civilians could amount to war crimes, and French ambassador Francois Delattre said that the atrocities must not go unpunished. Britain, France and the US had called for the urgent talks after days of intense diplomatic efforts to salvage a US-Russian ceasefire deal ended in failure at the weekend.

Mr Ban called on world powers to “work harder for an end to the nightmare” in Syria that has left more than 300,000 people dead and driven millions from their homes.

To protest the attacks in Aleppo, the US, French and British ambassadors walked out of the Security Council chamber as the Syrian ambassador delivered his remarks.

Russia’s ambassador Vitaly Churkin conceded that the surge in violence over the past days meant that “bringing a peace is almost an impossible task now”. Mr Churkin again laid blame for the failed diplomacy with the US accusing Washington of being unable to convince armed opposition groups that it backs on the ground to distance themselves from the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and abide by the ceasefire. A US-Russian ceasefire deal that would have charted a way forward towards peace talks was broken by the “sabotage by the moderate opposition”, he asserted.

Mr Churkin, however, said that reviving the ceasefire was still a goal that Moscow could pursue if it was part of a “collective”” effort on all sides. Despite the recriminations, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said that a “tiny window of opportunity ... still exists” for Russia and the US to help Syria. He appealed for renewed efforts to allow Syria to “step away from the brink of more years of bloody conflict”.