Al-Assad: Russia, Syria Holding Talks on Supplies of More Air Defense Systems
Local Editor
Russia and Syria are holding talks on the supplies of additional air
defense systems to the war-torn country, Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad said in an interview with Sputnik.
Al-Assad said that Damascus is interested in Russia's last generation air defense systems.
"Of course, we need more armaments after the war and because of the consumption, and this is part of the daily relation between the two institutions in the Ministry of Defense in Russia and Syria," Assad said.
He further disputed the United Nations' death toll numbers of the six-year conflict, arguing that the West uses inflated figures to justify intervention.
Al-Assad maintained that neither the UN nor any other monitors have the means to calculate the number of casualties because of various factions on the ground, including "foreigners, Syrians and terrorists."
"Of course, we can talk about thousands of missing people that we don't know anything about their fate. This is the official number," al-Assad said.
"So, the numbers that we've been hearing in the Western media during the last six years were not precise, it's only to inflate the number just to show how horrible the situation [is], to use it as humanitarian pretext to intervene in Syria," al-Assad said.
The US-led coalition of 68 nations is conducting airstrikes against Daesh in Syria without either Damascus' or the UN's approval, thus, violating the international law.
Al-Assad further explained why the Syrian air defense did not down US cruise missiles that targeted a Syrian airbase in the Hama province earlier this month.
He said that over 50 percent of Syrian air defenses had been destroyed by terrorists.
"We don't have to give a precise number now, because as you know it's military information, but I can tell you more than fifty percent," al-Assad said of the destroyed air defense systems.
He explained the systems' inability to take down US Tomahawk missiles on April 7 as "technically complicated because the missile must see its target."
Terrorist attacks were the second reason behind the Syrian air defense system's inability to shoot down the Tomahawks, al-Assad added.
Source: Sputnik, Edited by website team
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