Russian military intervention in Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the "Idlib incident" was "a false flag operation."

Putin added that Russia has information about plans to stage new, similar incidents - "including in the southern suburbs of Damascus - the plan is to plant some chemical there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack."

The United States and Russia have exchanged words over the six-year-old Syrian war, with relations between the two states suffering a downturn before the foreign ministers of the two world powers meet tomorrow. 

The U.S.'s strike on Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack was a "very measured step", Washington's envoy to the UN said April 7. 

"We took a very measured step last night. We are prepared to do more.

We hope that it will not be necessary," Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security
Council. 

The United States has launched a massive airstrike targeting the Shayrat air base in an assault that, according to the Pentagon, was carried out "in retaliation" for President Bashar al-Assad ostensibly ordering a chemical attack against civilians. Russian Senator Igor Morozov compared the operation to America's prior military interventions.

The Ash Sha'irat military airfield near Homs in Syria has been destroyed and its aircraft damaged in US missile strikes, the airfield staffer told Sputnik on Friday.

Syrian television reports that flames continue to engulf the airfield following the attack.

"All aircraft located there have been damaged, you can say it is completely destroyed," the staffer said.

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase on April 7 from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week, an escalation of the U.S. military role in Syria that swiftly drew sharp criticism from Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador in Moscow to demand explanations for the airstrikes Israel conducted near the Syrian city of Palmyra last week, the ministry confirmed.

The US military said on March 16 it carried out a deadly air strike on an Al-Qaeda meeting in northern Syria and would investigate reports that more than 40 civilians were killed when a mosque was struck in the raid.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, met in Moscow on March 10 for a bilateral high-level cooperation council summit. 

BELGRADE - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Sputnik that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over an accidental Russian airstrike that had killed Turkish soldiers in Syria.