Heya Apache. :2wave: And Putin knows it too.
Russia's two-and-a-half year dispute with the West over the conflict in Syria hit a new peak Monday as Moscow warned against military action without UN approval and cast doubt over the regime's involvement in a claimed chemical weapons attack.
A telephone call Monday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron underlined how far apart Moscow and the West were.
With clamour growing in Western states for military action against Assad, Russia warned such intervention would destabilise the entire Middle East and be based on false reasoning.
"If force is used without a UN resolution it will lead to very serious consequences in relations between Russia and the United States and its NATO partners," said Alexander Filonik, a Middle East expert at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
At a hastily called news conference Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said any use of force against Syria without UN approval would be a "very grave violation of international law."
He said ideas floated in the West about knocking out the regime's military infrastructure and helping hand victory to rebels were not just an "illusion" but a "grave mistake that will not lead to any peace, but only mark a new, even bloodier stage of the war in Syria."
Taking military action against Assad would be a clear sign from the West that it does not want to take account of Moscow's opinion, Maria Lipman of the Carnegie Centre in Moscow told AFP.
"Moscow could not let that go by without a response," she said, adding that Russia could hit back by strengthening military cooperation with the Assad regime.
"London and Washington... just need a guilty verdict (on Assad). Any other verdict will be rejected," the head of the lower house of Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov, wrote on Twitter.....snip~
Russia, West on collision course over Syria
AFP – 4 hrs ago
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