Putin: We know who destroyed aid convoy in Aleppo, Syria

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Putin: We know who destroyed aid convoy in Aleppo, Syria

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12 October 2016

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The attack on a UN humanitarian aid convoy near Aleppo, Syria, last month, which Washington has blamed on Russia, was actually carried out by one of the terrorist groups present in the area, the Russian president has said.

“It was one of the terrorist groups. And we know that, say, the Americans know it too, but prefer to take a different position, to falsely accuse Russia. This is not helping,” Vladimir Putin said at an economic forum in Moscow.

The aid convoy was attacked on the night of September 20. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported 20 civilians killed and 18 vehicles destroyed.

The Pentagon alleged that the convoy was destroyed from the air and that Russian warplanes were present in the area, concluding that it was a Russian strike that was responsible.

Russia denied the accusation and said a US drone was monitoring the convoy, so Washington should know the truth about the attack.

@RT_com Sarkozy blasts ‘irresponsible’ Hollande after Putin cancels visit http://on.rt.com/7rnq

He also commented on the cancellation of this visit to France, which followed the debacle at the UN Security Council. Paris indicated that it wouldn’t be comfortable hosting Putin after Russia blocked the document is submitted.

“It’s not our partners, who should take offence over us vetoing the French resolution. I’d say we are the offended party here,” Putin said.

Russia concerned relations with US worsened, but ‘it was not our choice’

Speaking before an economic forum in Russia, the Russian leader said the US should start acting like an equal partner and respect Russia’s interests rather than try to dictate terms to Moscow for things to improve.

“We are concerned with the deterioration of Russian-American relations, but that was not our choice, we never wanted that. On the contrary, we want to have friendly relations with the US, a great country and a leading economy,” Putin said.

As an example of disrespect, Putin mentioned the way Russia had been dragged into the US presidential campaign. He said both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump used anti-Russian rhetoric to score political points.

“They made Russia a priority issue of the entire campaign. Everyone is talking about Russia. It may be flattering, but only partially. Because all participants of this process indulge in anti-Russian rhetoric and poison the relations between our states,” he said. “This is bad for both our countries and the international community.”

Another example is how Russia was accused by the US of meddling in the election through computer hacking.

“They caused this [anti-Russian] hysteria with a sole goal to distract the public from the essence of what the hackers leaked,” Putin said. “It’s basically a way of manipulating public opinion, but for some reason nobody discusses that. They only talk about who did it.”

US intelligence officials last week accused the Russian government of being behind a series of hacks which targeted the Democratic National Convention and the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Clinton camp has been pointing the finger at Putin as the source of the problems it faced over the leaks practically since the first batch of documents was released. Russia denies any involvement in the cyberattacks.