MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russia will take a hardline stance if Washington crosses "red lines" in Syria, and the US is aware of these "red lines," said Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee for Foreign Affairs, on Monday.
"There is definitely a clear-cut awareness of the situation in Syria. That understanding is the ‘red lines’ beyond which Russia’s reaction will clearly get tougher if these ‘red lines’ are crossed," Kosachev warned after a closed committee session in which the situation in Syria was discussed.
Answering a reporter's question on whether the US knows about what these ‘red lines’ are, the senator said yes.
Kosachev added that the Syrian crisis is complicating Russian-American relations right now. "We made sure that the Russian side controls the situation and has a clear-cut well-developed strategy for advancing Russian-American ties. However, for this progress to take place, willingness by the Americans is needed. We don’t see any now," the head of the Federation Council’s international committee said.
On April 14, warplanes and warships of the US, the UK and France carried out missile strikes on military and civil infrastructure facilities in Syria. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Syrian air defenses managed to shoot down 71 out of 103 cruise missiles. Washington, London and Paris earlier stated that the strikes were a response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma, a suburb of the Syrian capital. Representatives from the Russian Reconciliation Center for the Opposing Sides examined Douma on April 9 and found no trace of any use of chemical weapons there.