SYRIAN CIVIL WAR

Russia Vetoes UN Plan to End Aleppo Siege

Proposed by UN Security Council.

Russia on Saturday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have proposed an end to the siege in Aleppo, Syria, where innocent civilians are being killed as the Syrian government pushes to retake rebel-controlled areas. “Thanks to your actions today, Syrians will continue to lose their lives in Aleppo and beyond to Russian and Syrian bombing,” British ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft told his Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin. “Please stop now.” Russia countered the French-drafted resolution with its own version, which did not contain a provision about airstrikes in Aleppo and instead harped on a failed ceasefire agreement from last month. David Pressman, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN, said Russia “has become one of the chief purveyors of terror in Aleppo, using tactics more commonly associated with thugs than governments,” accusing the country’s leadership of “allowing the killing to continue and, indeed, participating in carrying it out.”