MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. The US air strike on a village in the Syrian province of Latakia was a provocation of American war hawks who are not interested in cessation of hostilities in that country, a Russian lawmaker said on Tuesday.
"The United States’ bombing of the Syrian province of Idlib claimed the lives of innocent civilians instead of eliminating militants. Moreover, it delivered a blow on the ceasefire regime. It looks like a provocation of American war hawks who are not interested in putting an end to the warfare in Syria as they are making their fortunes on it," Sergei Zheleznyak, a member of the international committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, told journalists.
"We and our allies in combating terrorism in Syria are exerting great effort to preserve the fragile truce in the war-weary country," he said. "Our country is sparing no effort to protect civilians in Syria, to provide them with humanitarian assistance, to clear populated localities of mines and help people return to normal life."
Any provocation can ruin the fragile truce and wreck the agreements between the Syrian government and the opposition that were reached though such great effort, he said.
"Ignoring this fact means instigating a new spiral of armed confrontation and giving terrorist groups a chance to use the unstable situation in their destructive purposes," Zheleznyak stressed.
Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said earlier that more than 20 civilians were killed in a strike delivered by a U.S. B-52 bomber in the Syrian province of Idlib on January 3.