Moscow considers use of unreliable data on its operation in Syria in UN docs inadmissible

MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. The use of unreliable data on alleged victims among civilians due to the Russian Aerospace Forces’ operation in Syria in official UN documents is inadmissible, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday after a meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien.

"The minister supported UN efforts aimed at organizing close interaction with Russia on issues of ensuring security of the organization’s humanitarian convoys in light of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ operation in Syria," the ministry said.

"The Russian side also raised the issue of inadmissibility of the use in UN official documents on the humanitarian situation in Syria of unreliable data on alleged victims among the civilian population as a result of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ operation against Islamic State militants," the ministry’s statement said.

US propaganda campaign aginst Russia

According to the ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, US accusations suggesting "Russia is delivering strikes at wrong targets in Syria" are part of "an information campaign and propaganda stint."

"Once again, we're hearing from our US counterparts on an almost daily basis that Russia is striking at the wrong targets something the US Ambassador in Moscow, John Tefft said recently," she said.

"On this background, there's an absence of precise information, which the US Department of State could release at its official news briefings ," Zakharova said. "Thus we get a vicious circle. First the US officials say Russia is delivering strikes at incorrect targets at civilian infrastructure facilities and then the media begin to quote their statements."

"And then we get answers to our clarification-seeking questions that the information is taken from open sources, including the media as such," Zakharova indicated. "First information is injected with references to unnamed sources and then it is confirmed by statements, including those by the US ambassador. Next these statements are again published by the media and then the Department of State officials quote media publications."

This course of action assumed by the US side "is a sheer information and propaganda campaign, a product of liaison between officialdom and the media which are misleading, to put it mildly, as they don't offer any facts," she said.

"We haven't received any information by official channels so far regarding the endless rebukes from Washington for an ostensible destruction of civilian infrastructures and struggle with the opposition instead of the Islamic State," Zakharova said.