Civilian bombing in Syria ‘fakes and lies’, says Russian ambassador

Allegations that schools and hospitals in Aleppo are being bombed by Russia are “a complete lie”, the Russian ambassador to Ireland has told an Oireachtas committee.

Maxim A Peshkov addressed the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade on Thursday.

Questioned by committee members about Russia’s role in Syria, Mr Peshkov said there were “too many fakes and lies” circulating about what was happening there. He agreed civilians were being killed but said the question was “by whom?”

The only thing that would make it possible to solve the Syrian crisis was the “political way” , he added.

Mr Peshkov said Russia, together with the Syrian authorities, continued to take measures to overcome the consequences of the acute humanitarian crisis in Syria.

‘Gravest humanitarian crisis’

Labour Senator Ivana Bacik said she met the ambassador last week and had conveyed to him the contents of a recent Seanad motion on Syria.

The motion said the six-year-old conflict was “one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises since the second World War, involving eight million displaced people inside Syria, 4.5 million people under siege or inaccessible, 4.5 million refugees beyond Syrian borders, 1.5 million people injured and more than 250,000 people killed”.

It called for full accountability for crimes under international law. Russia this week withdrew its backing for the International Criminal Court.

Maureen O’Sullivan of Independents 4 Change described events in Syria as an “appalling humanitarian crisis”.

“Where is the real desire for a just peace in Syria? Or is it a case that we’ll just keep bombing until they throw in the towel and there’s a winner? There’s not going to be any winner in Syria,” she said.

Mr Peshkov told the committee there was a desire to rebuild and reconstruct “this poor country to become as stable as it was before”.

“How and who will lead this country is not our business, it’s not your business, it’s not the business of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and so on.”

Carnage and massacre

He said he did not understand how it was possible to fight without firing and bombing. “Maybe military knows some way to fight without fighting. I don’t know how. War is war.”

Committee chair Brendan Smith TD (Fianna Fáil) said the committee had discussed the “indescribable” situation in Syria; the horror, carnage and massacre of civilians. “Those views echo the views of the Irish people,” he said.

He told the ambassador the “carnage” could not be allowed to continue and asked that he bring back to his country the “very serious concerns” of Ireland about the situation.

On Ukraine, the ambassador said the coup d’etat “supported by the West” in 2014, and its consequences, remained the “main destructive factors in the country”.

The ambassador told the committee bilateral Russian-Irish trade in the period January to April this year was $427.1 million (€399.5m), up 40 per cent on the same period last year. This was attributed to the shipment of Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 planes to Ireland [for CityJet].