President Trump in an early morning tweet on Wednesday warned Moscow that “nice and new and ‘smart'” missiles would be headed to Syria, saying, “Get ready Russia.”
“Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!'” he said.
“You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!” the president added, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
{mosads}The tweet comes after Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, told a Hezbollah-controlled TV station that Russian air defenses would shoot down any incoming missiles. He added that Russian forces would retaliate against the source of any attacks.
“If there is a U.S. missile attack, we — in line with both [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Russia’s chief of staff’s remarks — will shoot down U.S. rockets and even the sources that launched the missiles,” he said, according to Al Jazeera.
Trump has laid blame for a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians earlier this week squarely at the feet of Assad and his ally Putin and said he would decide on a response soon.
“It was an atrocious attack. It was horrible,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “This is about humanity and it can’t be allowed to happen.”
The president in a second tweet on Wednesday said the relationship with Moscow “is worse now than it has ever been.”
“There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy, something that would be very easy to do, and we need all nations to work together. Stop the arms race?” Trump tweeted.
Relations between Russia and the West have been steadily deteriorating over recent weeks due to Moscow’s support for the Syrian government as well as the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy on British soil, which the West has blamed on Russia.
Dozens of Russian diplomats have been expelled from the U.S. and Britain in past days, with a reciprocal amount of U.S. diplomats being expelled from a U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg.
Updated at 8:25 a.m.