Moscow probing Israeli strikes on Syria

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) – Russia is "establishing facts" about the Israeli Air Force’s missile attack on Damascus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

Insisting that the UN Security Council resolutions must be respected and executed, Lavrov said the country was probing, if Israel had targeted the cities of Damascus and Homs overnight on Monday.

"We are establishing the facts," he said.

"We flew in during the night, so we would like to find out what happened there. However, one of our principles is that the resolutions of the UN Security Council, which are in place, must be respected and fulfilled. We will proceed from there, in assessing the actions of any players in this region," he added.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Second International Parliamentary Forum in Moscow, Lavrov said Russian officials had no time to examine the case in detail, as they had just returned from the G20 summit in Osaka.

Earlier the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported death of four civilians in Israeli airstrikes in the capital Damascus and the central city of Homs.

Israel has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria in recent years, on the pretext to hit the Iranian forces in the region.

When Syria’s Russian-built S-200 air-defense system responded to such an airspace breach during a raid in September 2018, a Russian Il-20 military plane was struck by a missile, which destroyed the aircraft and killed all 15 servicemen on board.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Israeli pilots had used the Il-20 as cover in order to evade Syrian air defenses, thus making the Russian plane a target.

Russian defense ministry had said Israel was “solely responsible” for the incident.