MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/. Russia calls on Twitter to unblock the official account of the Russian diplomatic mission in Damascus, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Twitter on Wednesday.

"The official account of the Russian Embassy in Syria was blocked by Twitter yesterday without any explanation. We consider it an act of censorship and flagrant violation of freedom of speech committed by the social media administration," the ministry stressed. "We urge Twitter to immediately unblock the Russian Embassy in Syria."

The Russian Embassy in South Africa earlier tweeted that the account of the Russian diplomatic mission in Syria had been suspended after it posted criticism of the White Helmets NGO, citing data provided by the Russian Defense Ministry.

On July 29, Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of Russia’s General Staff, Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi said that militants in Syria had launched a massive campaign to discredit Russia’s operation in the Idlib de-escalation zone. In particular, the White Helmets use fake videos to spread disinformation about Russia’s alleged airstrikes against civilians in Syria, he noted.

According to Rudskoi, the disinformation campaign to discredit Russia’s operations in the Idlib zone had been unleashed by terrorists and organizations supporting them. It is alleged that Russian aircraft are attacking civilians and social facilities.

The official stressed that all such accusations were based on lies by pseudo-rescuers from the organization calling itself the White Helmets, whose responsibility for staging provocations, fabricating falsehoods and collaborating with terrorists has been proven many times.