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UK attacks Russian support for Syria regime after US airstrikes

The UK government has attacked Russia's role in alliance with the Syria regime as international tensions continue in the aftermath of the suspected chemical attack and retaliatory US airstrikes.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has pulled out of a visit to Moscow saying "we deplore Russia's continued defence of the Assad regime".

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has said Russia is responsible for "every civilian death" in Bashar Assad's suspected sarin attack on his own people.

US President Donald Trump has meanwhile written to both chambers of Congress justifying his decision to launch the retaliation strikes.

US senator John McCain has told ITV News the US and its allies must add momentum to Mr Trump's intervention by working to force President Assad out.

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Russia: US-ordered airstrike 'violates international law'

Russian President Vladimir Putin sees US airstrikes on a Syrian airbase as "aggression against a sovereign nation", the Kremlin has warned.

Putin believes the airstrikes 'violated international law' Credit: AP

The strikes were ordered by US President Donald Trump in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack on a hospital in Syria, which has been blamed on the country's government.

In a statement reported by news agencies in the country, the Kremlin said the attack "violated international law" and had been carried out on an "invented pretext".

It has done "significant damage" to the relationship between the US and Russia, the statement added - and said Putin believes they would be a "serious obstacle" to the creation of an international coalition to fight terrorism.

Putin sees the strikes as an attempt to distract the world from the "many" civilian deaths in Iraq, it said - and insisted that the Syrian army did not have any chemical weapons.

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UK attacks Russian support for Syria regime after US airstrikes

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