MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th September, 2018) Pyotr Tolstoy, the deputy speaker of Russia's lower house, expressed his hope Monday that the German Defense Ministry will not join France, the United Kingdom and the United States in retaliating against the potential use of chemical weapons in Syria.
On Sunday, the German Bild newspaper reported that German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was considering the possibility of joining the potential US, UK and French strikes on Syria in case of a chemical attack in� the country, which the Western states presume will be carried out by the Syrian government troops.
"Whom would target the coalition's strikes? Damascus? It is crazy ... How can they talk about a humanitarian catastrophe [in Syria] and conduct airstrikes at the same time ... I hope that such a decision will not be taken, since its consequences would be too grave," Tolstoy said commenting on the media reports.
Speaking about the increased presence of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria, Tolstoy believed that it was enough for the effective work.
On August 25, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said that terrorists of the Tahrir al-Sham group (affiliated with the Jabhat Fatah al Sham terror organization, banned in Russia) were preparing a false-flag chemical attack in Idlib, set to provoke foreign intervention in the country, as a number of Western states had already accused Damascus of using chemical weapons against civilians.
