US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Moscow has done "virtually zero" in fighting the ISIL and has instead made "the ending of the Syrian civil war there harder."
"They came in, they said they were going to fight ISIL, and they said they were going to help in the civil war in Syria. They have not done either of those things. As a consequence of course, we’re fighting ISIL ourselves," Carter said Sunday in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press."
Russia started its anti-terrorist campaign in Syria in September, 2015, following a request by the Syrian government. A number of ceasefire attempts and peace talks have taken place between Syria's warring factions since then. A US-Russian-brokered partial ceasefire was first introduced in early 2016, but violence continued, especially in Aleppo. A second Russian-Turkish-backed ceasefire took effect after the fall of Aleppo's militant-held enclave just before the end of 2016.
