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Conflict in Syria

Russia's Defense Ministry regards UK efforts in fight against IS as 'insignificant'

Fallon earlier said in an interview that Britain has made a major contribution to the anti-terrorism campaign

Russia's Defense Ministry building in Moscow Mikhail Dzhaparidze/TASS

Russia's Defense Ministry building in Moscow

© Mikhail Dzhaparidze/TASS

MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry regards efforts applied by the UK against the Islamic State (IS, a terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) as "insignificant," the ministry’s Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Friday in response to statements made by UK Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon.

Read also

Russian diplomat blasts UK envoy for pinning Syrians’ ‘suffering’ on Moscow

Fallon earlier said in an interview with UK Defence that "Britain has made a major contribution to the campaign that has crippled Daesh since 2014, forcing this miserable cult from the gates of Baghdad to the brink of defeat in Raqqa."

"While the Syrian forces, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces, were fighting to defeat the ISIS (the former name for IS - TASS) in Syria, it suddenly emerged that during all these years UK Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon has been helping us destroy terrorists behind our backs," Konashenkov stated.

In light of this, the major general questioned what the British Armed Forces were doing when "the ISIS swallowed up almost one-third of Iraq and all Syria in mid-2015?" "The British secretary of state for defense reported himself that the Royal Air Force has carried about 1,500 strikes on the ISIS in Iraq and Syria since 2014. At the same time, the Russian Aerospace Forces carried more than 99,000 precision strikes confirmed by data recorders over terrorists in Syria alone, which led to a strategic upset in the fight against the ISIS," the spokesman said.

"If Britain’s contribution to the fight against the ISIS may be called ‘inestimable,’ it is not because of the wide range of efforts, but because of their insignificance," Konashenkov concluded.

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