DISINFO: The Russian army doesn't deliberately target civilians, unlike the US
SUMMARY
Despite having lost soldiers in Syria and the fact that Turkey downed a Russian airplane and caused the death of its pilot, Russia didn’t take any inappropriate retaliation measures. It didn’t kill civilians on purpose, as it is known that the US did.
RESPONSE
Deliberate targeting of civilians by the Russian air forces has been a permanent concern for human rights groups and observers of the Syrian conflict since the beginning of its intervention in the country in 2015. Both Syrian and especially Russian armed forces have been repeatedly accused of purposefully attacking schools, rescue workers and hospitals by Amnesty International, Western governments or the United Nations in different moments of the war. Bombing of hospitals in Syria have been a recurrent event during the armed conflict, which MSF attributed to Russia in 2017. Moscow flatly denied any responsibility, trying to shift blame on the US air forces without presenting any evidence. In June 2019, doctors in the rebel-held area of Idlib stopped sharing coordinates of medical facilities with the UN after suspicions that they were being deliberately targeted by pro-Bashar Al Assad and Russian forces in what many observers considered a coordinated strategy. On October 13, 2019, The New York Times published an article analysing radio recordings linking Russian pilots to the purposeful bombing of four Syrian hospitals in May 5 and 6, 2019.