Bashar al-Assad Praises 'Soviet-Made Weapons'

While the United States, Britain, and France described their early morning attacks on targets in Syria as successful, Bashar al-Assad praised the 'superiority of Russian weapons' in countering the missiles fired during these attacks. In response to the use of chemical weapons in Douma last week, the US, UK, and France launched attacks on Sunday morning against targets in Syrian territory, which officials from all three countries claimed were 'successfully executed' and included chemical weapons depots and research centers. In this context, Donald Trump, who had described the missile operation in Syria as successful in a tweet on Saturday, defended this in another tweet on Sunday, emphasizing that the operation was carried out well and with high precision. However, Russian news agencies reported that Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, referred to the operations of the three Western countries as 'aggression' during a meeting with a Russian parliamentary delegation visiting Damascus, and praised the 'superiority of Russian weapons' in countering the recent attacks. According to reports from the Russian news agencies Itar-Tass and Interfax, several members of the Russian parliament present at the meeting quoted Assad as criticizing American films that depict Russian-made weapons as 'outdated,' stating that his country used 'Soviet-made missiles from the 1970s' in response to the early morning attacks, which 'demonstrated their superiority over the aggressors.' Reuters reported that a day before this meeting, a senior Russian military official claimed that 'Syria's air defense, which mainly includes equipment made during the former Soviet era, managed to intercept and destroy 71 out of 105 American, British, and French missiles.' However, the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon, stated that a total of 105 missiles were fired at three targets around Damascus and Homs, resulting in a 'precise, decisive, and effective' outcome that 'set back Syria's chemical weapons program by years.' According to General Kenneth McKenzie, a senior Pentagon commander, during the early morning attacks, the Russian missile defense system remained unresponsive, and although Syria's air defense could not intercept or destroy any missiles, it 'deliberately fired 40 anti-aircraft missiles after the operation ended.' Additionally, according to a statement from the White House, leaders of the US, UK, and France emphasized in a phone conversation on Saturday evening that the early morning attacks on targets in Syrian territory were 'necessary and successfully executed' to prevent the recurrence of chemical weapons use. On the other hand, Itar-Tass reported that Sergei Zheleznyak, a member of the Russian parliament, stated that Bashar al-Assad did not comment on the US demand for the Syrian government to declare its entire chemical arsenal during his meeting on Sunday. A day earlier, Heather Nauert, the spokesperson for the US State Department, had said in an interview with Fox News that the Syrian government must declare all chemical stockpiles in all its programs 'and if it does so, we will be able to assist them in the [peace negotiations in] Geneva.'