Russian President Vladimir Putin should authorize “military measures” in response to any strike by western powers on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, according to a senior Russian lawmaker.
“The United Russia party conscientiously states that all political, diplomatic and military measures if necessary will be taken,” Vladimir Shamanov, a defense committee chairman in the Russian legislature’s lower house, said Tuesday. “We won’t let the Americans hammer nails on someone else’s anvil.”
Shamanov, a former Russian general who played an allegedly brutal role in the Chechen war that established Putin’s popularity when he first came to power, echoed the Russian Foreign Ministry’s argument that Assad is not responsible for the latest chemical weapons attack in Syria. But he put a finer point on the threat of military retaliation, following diplomatic warnings of “grave repercussions” that could result from a strike against Assad.
“No illegal action will remain unanswered,” Shamanov said. “They should not pin their hopes on their naval task forces and their deceptions. We are a sovereign country and we have allies and guarantors for those events taking place in Syria.”
Russia has coordinated with Iran, and by extension Iran’s Hezbollah proxies, to help stabilize Assad’s regime since 2015. Putin’s intervention made Russia a key player in the Syrian civil war, an especially complex conflict that involving multiple terrorist groups and rebel militias, while setting the stage for a larger clash between Iran and Israel even as Russia and the United States support opposing proxy forces and conduct military operations adjacent to each other.
“I have to say it very slowly because it’s the first time during my presentation over four years of my own briefings that I’ve reached a point in which I am expressing a concern about international security — not only regional, or national, or Syrian security,” Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, told the Security Council on Monday.
“The Council cannot allow a situation of uncontrollable escalation to develop in Syria, on any front, instead it must find unity and address the complete threats to international peace and security in Syria today.”
Unity was nowhere to be found. Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia argued Assad was being framed for a chemical weapons attack in order to justify a western airstrike, in addition to accusing the United States of leading an international conspiracy to oppose Russian interests.
“We are not particularly keen to be friends with you,” Nebenzia told U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley. “So-called friends of yours are only those who cannot say no to you, and, this is the sole criterion for friendship in your understanding.”
Haley all but vowed that the United States would target Assad, regardless of Russia’s objections.
“We have reached the moment when the world must see justice done,” she said. “History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria. Either way, the United States will respond.”
