Russia Threatens To Shoot Down US Missiles, Target Launch Sites In Any Syria Strike

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Russian Ambassador in Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin, in Beirut, Lebanon, last year. In a television interview Zasypkin warned that Russia would "shoot down" any American missiles launched at Syria. Bilal Hussein/AP hide caption

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Bilal Hussein/AP

Russia's ambassador to Lebanon has warned that his country will shoot down any U.S. missiles fired at Syria in a punitive strike on the Damascus regime over its alleged use of chemical weapons.

"If there is a strike by the Americans, then ... the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired," Alexander Zasypkin told Hezbollah's al-Manar TV Tuesday evening, speaking in Arabic, according to Reuters.

NPR's Lama Al-Arian, reporting from Beirut, reports that Zaspykin said he was quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin. The threat applies not only to the missiles, but to their launch sites, she says.

However, Zaspykin said that a clash "should be ruled out" and that Russia was "ready to hold negotiations."

His remarks follow Russia's veto of a U.S. draft Security Council resolution calling for an independent investigation to establish with certainty if Syria used poison gas against civilians in Douma, a rebel-held suburb of Damascus, last week.

Syria has denied that it used poison gas.

President Trump on Tuesday warned the U.S. was prepared to take "forceful" action. "We have a lot of options, militarily," he said.

Russia joined the Syrian civil war to fight alongside Assad in 2015. Although its Security Council veto was expected, Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said Moscow's decision to stand with its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, amounted to "protecting a monster over the lives of the Syrian people."

Earlier, Russia's U.N. envoy, Vasily Nebenzia cautioned the U.S. to "refrain from the plans that you're currently developing," saying Washington would "bear responsibility" for any "illegal military adventure."

In a further sign that military action may be imminent, Eurocontrol, the European air-traffic control agency, issued a warning on Wednesday to commercial airliners flying in the eastern Mediterranean.

"Due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria with air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles within the next 72 hours, and the possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment, due consideration needs to be taken when planning flight operations in the Eastern Mediterranean/Nicosia FIR area," it said, referring to the designated airspace, Reuters reports.

In the alleged poison gas attack in Douma on Saturday, pro-opposition rescue workers and doctors tell NPR's Ruth Sherlock that 42 people were killed – the same number as reported by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Doctors have said that the symptoms presented by suspected victims of the attack are consistent with chlorine gas. In the past, the U.S. and its Western allies have accused Syria of using Sarin gas against civilians, a charge Damascus denies.

Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has said the Syrian and Russian governments have invited it to conduct a fact-finding mission on the ground in Syria to "establish facts surrounding the allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."

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