Translated material
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned about the release of a staged video about the use of chemical weapons by Russian aviation
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation reported that opponents of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad prepared a video about the use of "prohibited ammunition loaded with chemicals" by Russian and Syrian aircraft.
“According to our information, the “film crew”, in the best traditions of Hollywood, captured the “air raids”, as a result of which children are killed. At the same time, various special effects were used to give “believability” to this staging, in particular, yellow smoke, ”the ministry said in a statement.
The Foreign Ministry said that the video was filmed near the Turkish-Syrian border, without specifying which of the two states. When the shooting took place, who organized it and when the video will be published, the agency also did not specify.
The length of the Turkish-Syrian border is about 822 kilometers. According to the Syrian Civil War Map website , most of Syria is controlled by Kurdish militias.
About 80 kilometers of the border near the Turkish cities of Elbeyli and Karkamysh is controlled by the Islamic State (an organization banned in the Russian Federation as a terrorist organization). Syrian rebels control sections of the border north of the city of Azaz and west of Idlib. A map of the Syrian conflict for the evening of July 13, prepared by the participants of the Wikimedia project, can be viewed here .
In this regard, we would like to reiterate that the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force conduct special operations only against the targets of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups at the request of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic Bashar al-Assad. Ammunition filled with chemicals is not used in such operations.
- Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, opponents of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have repeatedly accused him of using chemical weapons. In 2013, with the mediation of Russia, the Syrian government transferred its stockpiles of chemical weapons under international control, which made it possible to avoid direct US intervention in the Syrian conflict.
- Russia has been repeatedly accused of using cluster bombs in Syria, which are prohibited by the relevant international treaty (Russia, the United States, Syria and other countries have not joined it). The command of the armed forces of the Russian Federation denied their use. On June 20, RT broadcast . footage showing cluster munitions on a Russian aircraft at the Khmeimim airbase in Syria
- The fact that women and children become victims of Russian air strikes in Syria was mentioned, in particular, by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the international organization Amnesty International. The report of the last Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation called it full of "fakes and clichés."
- of using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq The Islamic State has been accused . The militants of this group could get it from warehouses in Iraq, where it could be stored since the early 1990s.