MOSCOW, Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed as “information warfare” allegations of civilian casualties in Russian airstrikes against terrorists in Syria.
“When it comes to media reports regarding the suffering of the civilian population, we are ready for this information warfare,” Putin said at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights on Thursday.
“The first reports about civilian casualties emerged even before our planes got in the air,” RIA Novosit quoted him as saying.
Comparing Russia’s airstrikes against militants wreaking havoc in Syria with the US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh Takfiris in the Arab country, the Russian president noted that the latter was launched with no UN mandate or invitation from the Damascus government.
“We have such an invitation and we intend to fight against terrorist organizations and them only,” he said.
Russia’s airstrikes against the militants operating in Syria officially kicked off on Wednesday, shortly after the upper house of the Russian parliament gave Putin the mandate to use military force in Syria, an ally of Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also told journalists in New York on Thursday after meeting his US counterpart John Kerry that Moscow has no information on injuries among civilians following Russia’s air raids in Syria.
“One talks about injuries among civilians as a result of these strikes. We do not have such data. We very carefully watch that these strikes are surgical and that they target solely positions and equipment and arms facilities of terrorists units,” Lavrov said.
A Syrian security source, whose name was not released in reports, also said on Thursday that fresh airborne assaults “from four Russian warplanes struck bases held by the [so-called] Army of Conquest in Jisr al-Shughur and Jabal al-Zawiya” in Syria’s northwestern Idlib Province.
The arms depots held by “armed groups” in Syria’s western province of Hama were also targeted, the source said.
Russian jets reportedly carried out air raids against foreign-backed terrorists in Syria’s central province of Homs on Thursday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, has announced that Moscow has deployed more than 50 military aircraft to Syria.
“The aviation group was deployed promptly. We were able to do that because we had a stock of supplies and ammunition at the Tartus logistics facility [in Syria]. All we had to do was move the aircraft and supply some equipment,” Konashenkov said on Thursday.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy and a terror campaign by Daesh for over four years. Nearly a quarter of a million people have been killed in the violence.
Credit: PressTV
