Summary Barack Obama said he was ready to launch air strikes on Islamic State fighters in Syria.
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia said on Thursday that unilateral US airstrikes on jihadists in Syria would be a crude violation of international law.
"The US President has directly announced the possibility of strikes by American armed forces against positions of the Islamic State in Syria without the consent of its legal government," said Alexander Lukashevich, a spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry.
"In the absence of an appropriate decision of the UN Security Council, such a step would become an act of aggression, a crude violation of the norms of international law," Lukashevich said in televised remarks.
On Wednesday Barack Obama said he was ready to launch air strikes on Islamic State fighters in Syria, expanding the campaign already undertaken against the jihadists in Iraq.
Lukashevich said Moscow welcomed the fact that Washington had acknowledged the threat from the radical Islamists.
"Better late than never, as they say," he said.
But he accused the United States of "double standards" over its support for the opposition in Syria.
"While on the one hand helping the Iraq government to confront Islamist militants, Obama is once more asking Congress for 500 million dollars to support the Syrian armed opposition, which as a whole is little different from the radicals in the Islamic State," Lukashevich said.
