RUSSIA was compared to Nazi Germany yesterday, as MPs accused Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes in Syria.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, making his first speech in the Commons since taking the job, said Russia were on the brink of becoming a “pariah state” and said he’d like to see Putin investigated by the International Criminal Court, over what was now “the biggest and, potentially, the deadliest siege since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war more than five years ago”.
The SNP’s Patrick Grady called for the UK to ramp up humanitarian aid and drop “bread, not bombs” and argued that the government should back a “properly enforced” no-fly zone to allow that to happen.
Johnson warned that a no-fly zone was useless unless Britain was “prepared to shoot down planes or helicopters that violate that zone. We need to think very carefully about the consequences.”
Eastern Aleppo is, once again, currently suffering near constant bombing, those living in the city have no power, no water, while aid is prevented from getting into the region, Many have been left without access to food.
Russian jets are targeting areas held by rebel groups opposing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Moscow claim they are attacking terrorists, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights suggest the Russians are killing civilians, children included.
Last week Russia vetoed a Franco-Spanish UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to the bombing.
Johnson said that in the past two weeks at least 376 people – half of them children – have been killed, and another 1,266 have been injured.
“Every hospital in eastern Aleppo is believed to have been bombed, some more than once, and several have been put out of action. Hospitals have been targeted with such frequency and precision that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this must be deliberate policy.”
This, Johnson said, “amounts to a war crime.”
Former Tory International Development minister Andrew Mitchell said the Russians were “doing to Aleppo precisely what the Nazis did to Guernica during the Spanish civil war”, when Hitler sent the Luftwaffe to deliberately attack civilians.
The SNP said the UK should be held accountable for the role it has played in the bloody civil war. The party’s defence spokesman Brendan O’Hara told the Commons: “The United Kingdom unilaterally joined this fight in December last year, promising that it would be a pivotal turning-point in the campaign.
“It has singularly failed to do so, so we have to take a different tack. We must have the bravery and the courage to stand up and say that we were wrong to do what we did last year.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded on her official Facebook feed saying she felt ashamed for Boris Johnson.
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