‘Figment of imagination’: Russian military slams US State Dep. spokesman Kirby over hospital claims
The Russian military has dismissed allegations from the US State Department accusing Russia of bombing “hospitals” and “a mobile clinic” in Syria as “figments of the imagination.”
“Three days have passed, and now it is absolutely clear that the ‘hospitals’ and ‘mobile clinics’ allegedly destroyed in Aleppo by airstrikes exist only in the imagination of US State Department spokesman John Kirby,” the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, General Igor Konashenkov, said on Friday.
During Wednesday’s State Department briefing, Kirby accused Russia and the Syrian army of bombing “five hospitals and at least one mobile clinic in Syria.” When RT asked him for details, including the locations of the allegedly destroyed medical institutions, he said he couldn’t provide them straight away and wouldn’t treat RT journalists like the others present because RT was “state-owned.”
Kirby’s disrespectful comment sparked a scandal, and the State Department later provided RT with details about the alleged Syrian strikes in an email. Kirby later said there was, in fact, no evidence that Russian or Syrian warplanes had been involved, explaining that his allegations were based on deduction.
The Russian Defense Ministry has denied attacking hospitals in Syria and questioned the veracity and validity of the State Department’s sources.
“If we count the number of ‘hospitals’ and ‘mobile clinics’ bombed in Syria over the last year, according to American and especially British sources, one might conclude there were nothing but ‘hospitals’ in Syria,” Konashenkov said, adding that all of Russia’s requests to the US-led coalition asking for the locations of medical facilities and schools in rebel-held part of Aleppo so that they can be avoided have proven futile.
“The response is always the same: nobody has such information,” the general said.
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