Russian envoy warns of ‘consequences’ after US-led strikes on Syria

Syria ally Russia warned Friday of “consequences” following the launch of US-led strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack.

“Again, we are being threatened,” Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said in a statement. “We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences. All responsibility for them rests with Washington, London and Paris.”

“Insulting the President of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible,” added the envoy, after President Donald Trump directly called out his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over his support for the Assad regime.

Syria has been attacked just as it had a chance for peace, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, hours after US, British and French forces pounded Damascus with air strikes in response to a suspected poison gas attack last week.

“First the ‘Arab spring’ tested the Syrian people, then ISIS, now smart American rockets. The capital of a sovereign government, trying for years to survive under terrorist aggression, has been attacked,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook.

“You have to be quite abnormal to attack Syria’s capital just at the moment when it had a chance for a peaceful future,” she wrote.