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Russian diplomat: Russia started operation in Syria due to inaction of US-led coalition

According to the Russian deputy foreign minister, BRICS countries reacted "to the operation of Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces in Syria with understanding"

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Russia launched a military operation in Syria because it could no longer handle the inaction of the US-led coalition, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Rossiya 24 TV channel on Monday.

"Our colleagues from BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] reacted to such measures, to the operation of Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces in Syria with understanding," Ryabkov said. "We have a task [in BRICS] to form a working group on fighting terrorism. Our special agencies maintain contacts with colleagues from BRICS. However, there is a great distance between such work and what Russia does to defeat the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization," he added.

"We entered Syria and started using aviation there because we thought that it was impossible to put up any longer with quasi-actions, or in fact inaction of US-led coalition that could not solve its tasks," Ryabkov said.

On 30 September 2015 Russia’s Federation Council unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request to launch a military operation in Syria against Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups. The Russian Aerospace Force delivered first targeted airstrikes at militants’ positions on the same day. Since the start of the operation, Russian aviation made hundreds of sorties, destroyed dozens of ammunition depots, explosives production plants and command posts.

BRICS, an informal association of five fast-developing countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - was founded in June 2006. Its first official summit was held in June 2009 in Yekaterinburg. Since then BRICS summits are held every year in the participating countries alternately. The latest summit was held on July 8 and July 9 in Ufa.