MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. By allocating money for humanitarian assistance to Raqqa’s residents, the US-led coalition tries to organize a new Syrian center, which would be beyond control of President Bashar Assad, first deputy head of the Federation Council (parliament’s upper house) committee on defense and security Frants Klintsevich told reporters on Sunday.
The immediate allocation of millions of dollars and euros for Raqqa, he said, is another example of how the US-led coalition uses double standards in Syria, and example of differentiating between "friendly" and "unfriendly."
"Clearly, all this has an apparent political background," the senator said. "And here the thing is not only in the attempts to hide the evidence of the barbarian bombing, in my opinion first of all those are the attempts to make Raqqa a center of another Syria - Syria, which is not controlled by Bashar Assad. This is the purpose of the money, and claimed restoration of peaceful life in the city is only a seeming excuse."
Earlier reports said the UK allocated ten million pounds ($13.2 million) for humanitarian assistance to civilians in Syrian Raqqa, liberated from militants of IS (Islamic State, outlawed in Russia). The offensive in Raqqa began on June 6. Terrorists were encircled in the central part of the city on September 21, but continued resisting. Before the final stage of the operation, most civilians had fled the city.
The Syrian Democratic Forces coalition at a news conference on October 20 announced officially the city was liberated from the militants. Russia’s Defense Ministry compared the coalition’s bombarding of Raqqa with Dresden, which was destroyed in 1945.