It was the eighth veto by Russian Federation, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, on a Western-backed Syria resolution and reflected the deep division that has left the U.N.'s most powerful body struggling to tackle the use of banned chemical weapons and to help end the six-year Syrian conflict.
On April 4, at least 70 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack against a residential neighborhood in Syria.
Calling for an "objective and unbiased probe" into the chemical attack in Syria, Lavrov said Russian Federation has no intention to shield anyone responsible for the incident and repeated Russia's view that the Syrian government was not responsible for the attack. "We are quite confident about that".
Putin has angrily rejected the accusations against Damascus and slammed the U.S. bombing as "a violation of worldwide law".
"We hope that the USA president will become aware of that analysis", he said on Thursday.
USA officials said the strike against the Shayrat airbase hit aircraft, fuel storage, weapons dumps and other equipment, and was aimed at sending a message to the Syrian regime that the use of chemical weapons would not be tolerated.
"Frankly, Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person", Trump said, referring to Assad.
Russia's top diplomat accused the United States of carrying out an unlawful attack against Assad's forces as he opened a fraught meeting with the visiting Tillerson.
Five days before the Khan Sheikhoun attack, Haley had indicated the United States had ditched the Obama administration's policy of removing Assad. "No one showed us anything, no one said anything, although we repeatedly asked to produce the details on which these unfounded accusations lie". "I don't remember any positive examples of how a dictator was overthrown and everything was just fine afterwards".
"With all the existing problems, both objective and artificially created ones, we still have quite a few prospects for joint work".
Earlier on Wednesday, both the U.S. and Russian presidents made statements that reflected the continuously increasing tensions. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley in a speech delivered to the United Nations called out Russian Federation for its support of Assad.
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However, former Afghan president Hamiz Karzai condemned the attack, saying that the U.S. was using their soil to test weapons. He said that allowing the US military to launch such an attack in Nangarhar was an insult to Afghans.
"The Syrian strikes last week hasten the interest, but what I am working on with my colleagues is not with respect to action in Syria", said Sen. But "with its veto, Russian Federation said no to accountability". Any expectations of an easy rapport have crashed into reality amid the nasty back-and-forth over Syria and ongoing US investigations into Russia's activity connected to the USA presidential election.
Steeped in geopolitical intrigue, the meeting between Putin and Tillerson wasn't formally confirmed until the last minute, following days of speculation about whether the Russian would refuse to grant the former oil executive an audience. The conflict ignited by the US-backed right-wing coup in Ukraine placed the deals on hold.
McGovern, who has been a critic of military action in Iraq and Syria under Obama and Trump, told CNN he was prepared to use procedural tactics in the House to force a vote on Trump's military actions if Congress has not received a Syria strategy from the White House.
"There is a low level of trust between our two countries".
Trump's evolving views on those two world powers have brought the USA back into alignment with former President Barack Obama's pattern of "great power" politics. "It will not spiral out of control". Russian Federation was joined by Bolivia in voting against the measure, supported by 10 members of the council.
The vote on the Security Council resolution drafted by Britain, France and the United States was 10 in favor, Russian Federation and Bolivia against, and China, Kazakhstan and Ethiopia abstaining.
Earlier in the day, USA ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the Russians are "isolating yourselves from the global community every time one of Assad's planes drop another barrel bomb on civilians and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death".
With a shared willingness to mend the battered ties, Russian Federation and the United States agreed on Wednesday to work together on an investigation of the Syrian chemical weapons attack, although the divergence in their stances have not changed much.
'I'm amazed that this was the conclusion. "No one has visited the site of the crime". How do you know that?' he said. Until the chemical attack, the Trump administration had sought to step back from the US position that Assad should leave power.
U.S. President Donald Trump started out as a wild card candidate, daring to speak out about topics his opponents would not even think of bringing up during the hotly contested 2016 campaign.
Meanwhile, Russia announced the dispatch to the eastern Mediterranean of elements of its Baltic fleet, including the Admiral Grigorovich, a cruise-missile-armed frigate, and two Steregushchiy-class corvettes, also capable of firing long-range cruise missiles.
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