“Where is evidence that the Syrian troops used chemical weapons? No evidence. And what about violation of the international law? It is an obvious fact,” he said. Moscow has demanded that a UN team be sent to the area to conduct an impartial investigation.
Earlier the Russian president said that the recent chemical attack in Idlib province in Syria was a false flag operation, and that more similar “provocations” were being prepared. “We have reports from multiple sources that false flags like this one – and I cannot call it otherwise – are being prepared in other parts of Syria, including the southern suburbs of Damascus.”
“They plan to plant some chemicals there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack,” Putin told media representatives, adding that he has “trusted sources” during a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Moscow.
He compared the attack in Syria to the attack on Saddam Hussein’s non existent weapons of mass destruction, used as a pretext to invade Iraq. “President Mattarella and I discussed it, and I told him that this reminds me strongly of the events in 2003, when the US representatives demonstrated at the UN Security Council session the presumed chemical weapons found in Iraq.” Putin said.
“The military campaign that was then launched in Iraq, ended with the devastation of the country, the growth of the terrorist threat and the appearance of Islamic State on the world stage,” he added.
Putin also compared NATO member-states’ reaction to the US strikes in Syria to the “nodding of bobble heads” suggesting that many were not considering the outcome.
“What was the reaction of the NATO allies? All of them are nodding like bobble heads,” Putin added.
According to US Defense Secretary James Mattis, during the press briefing at the Defense Department, he had personally reviewed the intelligence on the chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province and the Syrian government was undoubtedly the culprit, but again he presented no evidence to support his claims.
The Syrian government has denied the allegations and a Syrian army source told Sputnik the country’s military did not possess chemical weapons.
Russia says that Damascus had no reason, strategic interest, or even the physical capability to launch a chemical weapons attack, since its entire arsenal – with the exception of stockpiles on terrorist-controlled territory – was destroyed under UN supervision in 2013.
“Out of 12 facilities used for storing and producing chemical weapons, ten were destroyed, as confirmed by the OPCW experts. The Syrian government has no access to the remaining two facilities, as they are located in territory controlled by the so-called opposition,” said the chief of the Russian General Staff’s operations department, Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy, as RT reported from his press briefing.
Increasing the emotional rhetoric, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that “Adolf Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons on his people” in the same way Syria did, suggesting that Jews were not gassed by Nazis in Germany during WW2.
“You had someone as despicable as Hitler, who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” Spicer said.
Spicer also attempted to explain that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Moscow to meet with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to discuss the crisis in Syria.
CBS News White House reporter Major Garrett demanded to know if the Syria crisis did not require a meeting with Putin personally instead of the Russian foreign minister.
Previously CBS’s mainstream hack had promoted the idea of a Russian conspiracy influencing domestic politics in the US, but now he seems to believe there is not enough Russian attention focused on his country.
