"Paranoa of exclusivity"

On Saturday, it became known about the initiative from the American Congress: the senators prepared and introduced a bill on the creation of a “hybrid tribunal”. According to Gazeta.ru, citing the text of the project, lawyers from different countries who have invested war crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian authorities and the Assad regime be included in the tribunal.

The reaction to the initiative followed immediately. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin spoke sharply against this proposal of senators: “Paranoa of exclusivity leads not only to impunity, but also to manic desire to teach everyone, judge and punish,” he wrote in his microblog.

And one of the American congressmen, known for his attitude to Russia, Republican John McCain began to blame again. In an interview with CNN, he stated that the “Russians are as bad” as Syria President Bashar al -Assad. McCain believes that Moscow was aware that Syria government troops have chemical weapons, and at the same time continued to maintain Assad's regime.

Recall that on Friday, April 7, the United States inflicted a airline at the Syrian Air Force base, dozens of Tomagavk cruise missiles were sent to the government troops in the province of Homs, five people died. Eyewitnesses talked about the complete destruction of the base, according to official information, six MiG-23 aircraft were destroyed, the educational building, warehouse, dining room and radar station were destroyed. According to the official statement from the United States, it was a response to a chemical attack in Idlib, in which the Syrian opposition accused the government forces at the beginning of the week. Then more than 70 civilians died, about 100 more were injured. Moreover, there is still no official information confirming the involvement of government forces in this incident, but this did not prevent Washington from assigning responsibility on Assad and now to investigate the involvement of the Russian Federation in this Himatak.

In Russia, the US Air Base in Homs was regarded sharply negatively. According to the press secretary of President Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin believes that from the USA this is aggression against the sovereign state, which violates the norms of international law and at the same time has an “invented excuse”. The press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation states that the United States has gone to demonstrate forces to military opposition to a country that fights international terrorism. “This is not the first time to demonstrate such a thoughtless approach that only exacerbates the problems in the world and poses a threat to international security,” follows from the document. It is also suggested that this was an attempt to switch attention from the situation in Mosul. There, as a result of actions, including the American coalition, hundreds of civilians died, and the humanitarian situation is rapidly worsening.

On the day of the attack, the agreement was suspended between the Russian Federation and the USA on flight safety in Syria, and then the Ministry of Defense closed the communication channel with the Pentagon. It was a “hot line”, which acted as part of a bilateral memorandum to prevent aviations.

According to TASS, with reference to the official representative of the Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the military attache at the US Embassy in Moscow was officially handed a note on the suspension of the Russian party to the memorandum of understanding from midnight on April 8. The Pentagon confirmed the receipt of the note and noted that the work on the line of preventing the conflict continues.

The American side remained unhappy with the reaction of the Russian Federation to its actions. Rex Secretary of State Tillerson said that he was disappointed, but not surprised by such a reaction, as this indicates the continuation of Russia's support for Bashar al -Assad. Since the beginning of hostilities in Syria, this was the first blow to the US forces against government forces. In addition, earlier American President Donald Trump avoided such radical actions, and a blow to the air base does not correspond to the promises that he made during his pre -election campaign when he spoke about the need to create an international coalition to combat terrorism. Now, according to the Kremlin, the risks of the clash of the Russian Federation and the USA in Syria are increasing significantly.