State Duma speaker warns US against taking military action that violates international law

“The role of world gendarme, especially one that acts while ignoring international laws, is fraught with ominous consequences,” Vyacheslav Volodin was quoted as saying by TASS on Friday, soon after the media reported that the US had launched a massive missile strike on the Syrian military’s Shayrat air base.

Two US ships launched 59 cruise missiles at the base. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 23 hit their targets, destroying a material storage depot, a training facility, a canteen, six MiG-23 aircraft in repair hangars, and a radar station. According to Syrian officials, at least five people were killed in the strike, of whom two were soldiers and three civilians.

The State Duma speaker said that the US missile strike had attacked a sovereign state and United Nations member using “an absolutely fictitious excuse,” noting “we all remember exactly how the same excuse was used to start airstrikes and other military action against Iraq.”

“The country is no more; people are in misery; shells are exploding there to this day. Eventually they discovered that were no chemical weapons there and said that there had been a mistake, but this mistake has cost tens and hundreds of thousands of lives, as well as the existence of a whole state,” the Duma chief stated.

“The same can happen in Syria and we must do everything to prevent this scenario from coming to life, especially, I would like to emphasize this again, because the missile strike was delivered on a completely invented excuse,” he added.

Volodin also said that Russian lawmakers may pass a special address on to European MPs in which they would explain that the US attack on Syria could have negative consequences for the whole world, including European countries.

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that Russia was suspending its 2015 Memorandum of Understanding with the United States on flight safety in Syria.