Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted to the United Nations on Monday that while the U.S. keeps talking about building up a local ground force to fight the Islamic State, only Syria, led by President Bashar Assad, is really taking up that fight today.
“We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad’s armed forces and Kurdish militia are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria,” Putin said through a translator to the United Nations General Assembly.
Putin also said he sees Syria’s army as “valiantly fighting” the Islamic State threat.
Putin’s jab at the U.S. came just minutes after President Obama blamed Russia for becoming a destabilizing force in the world. It also came less than two weeks after a top U.S. military general admitted to Congress that only “four or five” U.S.-trained Syrians are actually in the fight against the terror group, also called ISIS.
That admission led to howls of criticism from Republicans, who have said for months now that President Obama’s plan to “degrade and defeat” Islamic State is not going anywhere, despite its ongoing air campaign against the terror group. Obama’s ground plan is based on the idea of training new forces not aligned with Assad, but weeks ago, it became clear that only a few dozen were ever fully trained.
Putin also used the U.N. stage to take another shot at the U.S. for warning the world about Russia’s ambitions in the world, particularly after its annexation of Crimea.
“I must note that such an honest and frank approach of Russia has been recently used as a pre-text to accuse it of its growing ambitions, and if those who say it have no ambitions at all,” he said.
“However, it’s not about Russia’s ambitions, dear colleagues, but about the recognition of the fact that we can no longer tolerate the current state of affairs in the world,” he added. “What we actually propose is to be guided by common values and common interests rather than ambitions.”
