Russia Answers U.S. Criticism Over Military Aid to Syria

MOSCOW — The Foreign Ministry here expressed surprise on Monday over an American warning to Russia against escalating the conflict in Syria, saying that the Kremlin’s Syrian policy — in particular furnishing military aid to help the government confront extremist forces — had been consistent for years.

“We have always supplied equipment to them for their struggle against terrorists,” Maria V. Zakharova, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in an interview. “We are supporting them, we were supporting them and we will be supporting them” in that fight.

The sharp exchanges over Russian military aid to the Syrian government appeared to have dampened a brief spirit of cooperation, starting in early August, when Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed on a renewed effort to reach a political solution to the Syria crisis.

Some analysts see any possible Russian move to strengthen military aid now as a maneuver by President Vladimir V. Putin to embarrass the United States.

“It is basically a chance to play on Obama’s checkerboard,” said Konstantin Von Eggert, an independent political analyst, with Mr. Putin saying: “You want to fight the Islamic State. I am there. I am ready. Ah, sorry, you don’t really want to fight.”

Russia may try to use American criticism of any military aid as proof that the Obama administration is soft on the Islamic State and only wants to topple President Bashar al-Assad, he said, so “it can be presented as an American unwillingness to fight evil.”

Mr. Putin is scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month, for the first time in 10 years. That will give him a high-profile platform to promise to use Russia’s resources in the fight against international terrorism, including at a Sept. 27 meeting on confronting the Islamic State that the Obama administration is organizing.

Mr. Putin said on Friday that Russia believed the solution to the Syria crisis must proceed on dual tracks — both combating the Islamic State and ensuring a political transition. Strengthening the capabilities of the Syrian Air Force to defend Damascus would evidently give Mr. Putin some leverage over any political settlement, too.

In Washington, the State Department announced on Saturday that Secretary of State John Kerry had telephoned his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, to warn against expanding Russian military aid to Syria.

According to American intelligence sources, Russia is bolstering Syria’s air defenses in some key areas and possibly building a camp for Russian military personnel.

Mr. Kerry warned Mr. Lavrov that such aid would further escalate the conflict, cost more lives, push more refugees to flee and risk a confrontation with other forces fighting the Islamic State, according to the State Department.

In Greece on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said it was studying a request from the United States to deny Russia the permission it has sought for overflights to Syria, Reuters reported.

Ms. Zakharova said military aid was consistent with a proposal by Mr. Putin that all the forces battling the Islamic State combine efforts. The specific details of the aid were a matter for the Defense Ministry, she said, not the Foreign Ministry. The Defense Ministry has said it was fulfilling existing contracts.

“Our proposal is to gather all the efforts together — all the international players, all Syria’s neighbors, all members of the opposition coalition, all of those who are involved,” Ms. Zakharova said, asserting that Moscow had already broached the idea with Washington. Since the idea is to share information among all the major players, she said, that would minimize the risk of any unexpected confrontation.

Russian diplomats said they suspected that the real, unstated goal behind the American criticism was that the United States and some other opponents of Mr. Assad want to use the fight against the Islamic State to pursue their original goal of deposing him. Russia opposes that both as a goal and a principle.

Mr. Putin defused a previous American move to attack Syria in 2013 by forging an agreement for the destruction of Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons.

“The problem is that the West cannot show one example of how they would manage the Syria story right after,” Ms. Zakharova said. “What is the West planning to do right after? Do they have a magic wand that will transform Syria from civil war to economic prosperity?”

The main challenge in Syria remains the future of Mr. Assad. Russia is generally dismissive of the argument that Mr. Assad created the current chaos in Syria and fostered the rise of Islamic extremism by having refused to engage with the peaceful opposition when street protests started in 2011. Much of the opposition in exile insists that he should be barred from a role in any political transition. Russia has said such a position amounts to an unacceptable precondition for talks.

Both Russia and Iran have made a show of rejecting claims that their support for Mr. Assad has softened. The Iranians, whose military aid has been vital to the Damascus government, defended Mr. Assad on Monday for the first time in a while.

“Those who have set a condition about the Syrian president in the past two years should be blamed for the continued war and they should account for the bloodshed,” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said at a news conference in Tehran.