Russian TASS news agency quoted the ministry as saying “alarming reports are coming from various sources that some terrorist and extremist groups in Syria never stop attempts at staging large-scale provocations with the use of chemical weapons and toxic agent.”

“It is absolutely obvious that extremists’ chemical provocations are geared to furnish foreign opponents of the legitimate government in Damascus with another pretext to stage aggressive actions similar to the illegal missile strikes carried out by the United States, Britain and France on Syria in April 2018, to frustrate efforts towards establishing political process, to slow down revival of the country and return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes. We cannot and must not let it happen,” it added.

Yesterday, chief of the Russian coordination center in Hmeimim, Lieutenant General Vladimir Savchenko stated that the center received information from local residents in Aleppo countryside about terrorists preparing a new chemical provocation against civilians with the aim of blaming the Syrian army for it.