The US accused Moscow of “barbarism” over the worsening carnage in Aleppo, Syria, as Syrian and Russian warplanes pounded the city in one of the heaviest bombing raids of the five-year war.
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to demand Russia rein in its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and halt intense airstrikes, Moscow and Damascus were repeatedly accused of war crimes.
“What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism. It is barbarism,” US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said at the Sunday session.
About 124 people, mostly civilians, have died since bunker-busting bombs and sophisticated weaponry were unleashed on residential areas in rebel-held eastern Aleppo after the Syrian army on Thursday last week launched an operation to take it.
“It is difficult to deny that Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes,” British Ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft said, adding that the high-tech weaponry had inflicted “a new hell” on war-weary Syrians.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also warned the use of advanced weaponry against civilians could amount to war crimes, and French ambassador Francois Delattre said the atrocities must not go unpunished.
Britain, France and the US had called for the urgent talks after days of intense diplomatic efforts to salvage a US-Russian ceasefire deal ended in failure at the weekend.
Ban called on world powers to “work harder for an end to the nightmare” in Syria that has left more than 300,000 people dead and driven millions from their homes.
To protest the attacks in Aleppo, the US, French and British ambassadors walked out of the UN Security Council chamber as the Syrian ambassador delivered his remarks.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin conceded that the surge in violence in past days meant that “bringing peace is almost an impossible task now.”
Churkin again laid blame for the failed diplomacy with the US, accusing Washington of being unable to convince armed opposition groups that it backs on the ground to distance themselves from al-Nusra Front and abide by the ceasefire.
A US-Russian ceasefire deal that would have charted a way forward toward peace talks was broken by the “sabotage by the moderate opposition,” he said.
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