Russia warned late Friday there would be “consequences” for President Trump’s decision to proceed with airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons facilities, according to Moscow’s representative to the U.S.
“We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences,” said Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. “All responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris.”
Russian officials intimated repeatedly over the last several days that a western strike against Assad might provoke a retaliatory action from Russia. But the U.S., France, and the United Kingdom nonetheless took aim at three facilities involved in Assad’s chemical weapons program, a selection of targets chosen in part to mitigate the risk that Russian forces — deployed to Syria in support of Assad — would take casualties that might oblige Russian President Vladimir Putin to escalate the clash.
“Our response has been limited to the Syrian regime’s facilities enabling the production and employment of chemical weapons,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday night. “We cannot tolerate the normalization of the employment of chemical weapons, which is an immediate danger to the Syrian people and to our collective security.”
Trump blamed Putin specifically for Assad’s repeated use of chemical weapons within hours of the April 7 attack in Douma, a city outside the suburbs of Damascus. He reiterated that charge Friday night when announcing the strike.
“To Iran, and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children?” the president said. “No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rogue states, brutal tyrants, and murderous dictators.”
Antonov took umbrage at the accusation, immediately after vowing “consequences” for the strike. “Insulting the President of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible,” he said.
